


Moon's Tears

by wyrmwood (archangelgf)



Category: Linked Universe - Fandom, The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: BUT THEY GET OVER IT TOGETHER, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Impostor Syndrome, Nonbinary Time (Linked Universe), Nonbinary Wild (Linked Universe), Parent Time (Linked Universe), Time (Linked Universe) Needs a Hug But He Really Doesn't Want One, Time (Linked Universe)-centric, Wild (Linked Universe)-centric, and very similar, dark link's shenanigans are making Master Mode happen, im gonna be honest this is so self-indulgent. i like time & wild parent/child dynamics very much, more tags to come with more chapters !!, relatively minor, time and wild are just. SO repressed, wild and time are having so many crises
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-14
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:14:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28059009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archangelgf/pseuds/wyrmwood
Summary: The Links are separated during a shift to Wild's Hyrule and scattered all over the land. To make matters worse, the Shadow's influence seems to only be getting stronger, with rumors of terrifyingly strong monsters appearing and Divine Beasts acting strangely. Time and Wild, stranded together, set off on a journey to find their friends.Things spiral rapidly from there.AKA: The Road Trip Time & Wild Bonding Fic You Never Knew You Wanted, Ft. Emotional Repression and Learning to be Vulnerable
Relationships: Four & Hyrule & Legend & Sky & Time & Twilight & Warriors & Wild & Wind (Linked Universe), Time & Wild (Linked Universe)
Comments: 83
Kudos: 306





	1. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Setting down his letter, Time glanced back at him. “You look better.”
> 
> Wild shrugged. Ow. “Not dead,” he said helpfully.
> 
> Time only shook his head. “I’m not surprised, even with wounds like those. You may well be the most durable person I’ve ever met.” 
> 
> Wild grinned. 
> 
> “Only because you’re so reckless, of course.” 
> 
> Wild frowned.

**ONE - HOMECOMING**

GREAT PLATEAU

The boy in the Shrine of Resurrection was a dead man, but he dreamt.

They were strange dreams, and when he woke, he would not remember them. He dreamt of the moon and laughter in a misty forest and wolves with human eyes and red skies and desolation and birds bigger than he’ll ever see and seas that stretch on forever submerging him. 

He dreamt, too, of someone who might have been himself. He was floating in an endless too-bright blue ocean and the other him was standing over him, staring, and there was a strange red glint in his eye.

* * *

Blue. 

It was above him in the ceiling, lining it like veins. It was bright and hurt to look at when it throbbed, so Wild squeezed his eyes shut. He was dizzy. The strange humming emanating around him wasn’t helping. He blinked again, squinted. The blue veins’ glow dimmed briefly, and then it came back, and went again. Like a heart. Beat, beat, beat. The veins were set against dark gray stone, a mass reaching down from the top of the odd cave and— _fuck,_ the Shrine of Resurrection. How long was he asleep? How _long?_

The thought sent him flying to his feet. Another wave of dizziness crashed over him and he staggered, a hand shooting to his side. 

Oh. He wasn’t on the bed. He had been… on the floor.

He wasn’t sleeping. He wasn’t sleeping. He _wasn’t_. 

Wild’s side throbbed unhelpfully. Blood soaked his sky-blue tunic. When he fumbled to lift it up, he found crimson oozing down his side. He prodded the wound and grit his teeth. Deep, not that wide. Not great. But he’s had worse! He’s had just about everything once or twice.

 _Breathe_ , he reminded himself. _Why’s it so hot in here?_ The Shrine of Resurrection shouldn’t be hot, it’s perfectly room temperature, like every Shrine. The floor felt like it was burning.

Doesn’t matter. He was alone, which was not a good sign. What had they been doing…? 

Fighting, of course. It came back in pieces. It was moblins, and one of them had looked like that shady lizalfos. They’d gotten a little overwhelmed, and then… and then what? They switched Hyrules, but how?

There was no sound except the eerie humming of the Shrine. Most Shrines hum, low and quiet, but this felt like it was drilling into his skull. It was so loud. Louder than it’s ever been. The gash in his side protested as he climbed up the wall that led to the Shrine’s exit. He didn’t look back. As the humming faded, he remembered to glance at his inventory. One fairy. One fairy tonic, and weak. One hearty elixir. Some bandages.

He stumbled out onto fresh air, and, overlooking his green and empty Hyrule spreading horizon to horizon, said, “Ugh.” He tipped his head and knocked back the entire fairy tonic.

His wound didn’t even fully close. It’s just one of those days.

Wild haphazardly slapped some bandages on his angry wound and kept going. Climbing was out of the question, so he followed the path he’d first taken when he’d woken up, down the cliffs to the Temple of Time. 

Dawn was breaking. The air held a chill and was just silent enough to be off-putting. Ever since he’d woken up, the Great Plateau had been too still, too empty. Light from the rising sun poured across Hyrule as it peeked from between the Dueling Peaks. The lonely land bathed in a golden glow. It was lovely and eerie, just like it’d always been. Wild breathed in the breath of the Plateau that bore him.

The path to the Temple of Time was winding and thin, but Wild took being alone for once in stride and burst into a sprint. His feet pounded against the hard earth as the chilly air whipped against his face and through his long hair. His wound screamed at him but he didn't mind, the throbbing pain and the adrenaline bringing back memories of exploring Hyrule all alone, running from monsters. 

Somewhere along the way, he started laughing, and by the time he reached the Temple, he was out of breath, panting and giggling. When he woke up he never could have sprinted so far, and his hair wasn’t this long, and his body didn’t sing with this kind of strength. 

And when he was with the group they would’ve yelled at him for running while injured. It _was_ pretty stupid, he guessed. But he didn't mind.

As his breaths slowed and his laughter faded, he ignored the blue bokoblin in front of the Temple, crossed to the windows, and peered in. 

The Temple of Time was empty as ever. Once, Wild was sure, it must have been a mighty cathedral, towering like a giant. Now, it was nothing. Its floor was splintered, long taken back by lush green wilderness. Its intricately carved walls and massive arched ceiling crumbled and cracked. The wall opposite him was a gaping wound in the body of the building, torn open and letting light from the rising sun spill in. It was too bright. The Goddess Hylia smiled over it all, unmoved. He clumsily hopped through the window. If the Links truly were her chosen heroes, perhaps She would know something.

 _HERO OF THE WILD,_ said the Goddess in Her voice that lingered in the air like a strummed harp as he approached and knelt before Her. _I HAVE ALREADY TOLD YOU THAT YOU HAVE ACHIEVED GREAT ENOUGH POWER. GO, AND BRING PEACE TO HYRULE._

His throat was tight in Her presence. He ignored the twinge of annoyance at Her condescension. She was a goddess, after all, and if anyone had the right to be condescending, it’d be Her. He said, “Great Goddess Hylia, my companions…?” 

The Goddess smiled upon him. For a long moment, She was silent, considering. Finally, She spoke. _THEY HAVE BEEN SPREAD FAR AND WIDE BY A PECULIAR FORCE, ONE THAT IS BIZARRE AND UNKNOWN TO ME._

“Where are they?”

Hylia didn’t answer for a long and very painful moment. The silence was heavy on his shoulders, the air of the Temple unusually thick. He was about to get up when She said, _ONE IS HERE, ON THIS PLATEAU. THE REST ARE SCATTERED TO THE WINDS._ His heart sunk. Just _one_ is here? _THIS IS NOT MY DOING,_ She continued, as if scolding him. 

He waited for more. However, it seemed that Hylia had no desire to be anything but cryptic. 

_FEAR NOT. YOU ARE BRAVE AND INTELLIGENT MEN. SURELY YOU WILL BE ABLE TO FIND EACH OTHER IN A LAND THAT YOU KNOW SO WELL, HERO OF THE WILD._

“Goddess Hylia,” he began, but anything that could finish the thought slipped through his fingers. This was barely anything and, at the same time, more than She had ever given him.

The Goddess was still smiling. _GO, AND BRING PEACE TO HYRULE._

When he had first woken up he’d begged the Goddess Statue for anything, any tiny sliver of information, and She’d given him none.

“Thank you,” he said, trying to keep a tight leash on his bitterness and knowing he doesn’t succeed. 

A foul taste coated his tongue, but he should count his blessings. At least the Plateau was small and contained, two things which the rest of his Hyrule wasn’t. Finding one hero would be hard here, but not nearly as hard as when they step off and out into the wild. ...If they _can_ , if it’s Sky or Wind and they have something to glide with. If it’s not, this is already falling apart.

...You know what? He’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.

He skirted the edge of the Plateau to avoid bokoblins. It was very weird, being on his own. Familiar. Good weird. But he’d been with the group for a long time, always accompanied, always busy. Very little time to think.

He used to think too much back when he was on his own. He’d had The Wolf—Twilight, though not the Twilight he knows now—to talk to, but the beast came and went, and more often than not he was left alone with his thoughts and the stars. He’d spiral. The Links were a rambunctious group that didn’t allow for that kind of spiraling. It was probably on purpose; after all, they were all heroes. He wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of them thought like him. It helped a lot to be with people when it was always busy and there was never a quiet moment to spiral, spiral, spiral, but Wild would’ve been lying if he said he didn’t miss this. Being in the wilderness could be very lonely, but it was just as often homely and comforting. He knew better than anyone that nature wasn’t his, no, but he’s always thought he belonged to it as he belonged to the Great Plateau and to the long-dead Temple of Time.

Wild scoured the Forest of Spirits for a good few hours, but nothing was out of place. Some of the bokoblins were stronger colors than he remembers them being, but their camps were undisturbed.

Mount Hylia offers more undisturbed enemy camps to avoid. More nothing. It was cold and the climb was a little harder than usual with that side wound, but that’s all.

Nothing here was surprising.

Should he send off a flare? This was almost _too_ uneventful. It was already past noon and the sun was beating down on his back.   
  


He had reached the entryway that divides the grassy plains and the snowy mountains of the Plateau when he heard it. 

It was faint, but he strained to listen...

 _Motherfucker_.

Thundering hooves. The slam of a Crusher against the earth. Tense, heart-racing pauses, and then a mighty roar.

 _You’re kidding me._ A lynel. There’s a _lynel_ on the _Great Plateau_. Judging by the sound of a fight, the other hero ran right into it.

Wild switched back to his Champion’s Tunic and put on Barbarian Leg Wraps for good measure with a few taps of the slate. His side still screamed in protest as he flew down the hillside until he got a clear view of the plain that spreaded behind the Temple of Time. He panted heavily, gasping for air. 

...Oh, fuck him. 

It wasn’t just any lynel, it was a _white-maned_ lynel. Rolling out of the way of its fierce attacks is none other than Time. 

White-manes were the most vicious lynels there are, their speed only matched by their strength and ferocity, but Time dodged and weaved like a man half his size. Even so, it was clear he was overwhelmed, and the lynel had no plan to let him think of a strategy. Wild never fought a lynel with another person before. He had next to no idea how one would behave like that. His stomach was writhing. He couldn’t shoot without risking hitting Time with how fast he and the lynel were moving. Things pretty much could not get any worse for him. So, he rushed towards them, brought one hand to his mouth, and whistled as loud as he could.

The note sliced through the air. 

Time’s head snapped up, but thankfully, so did the lynel’s. As he charged, Wild flicked through his slate and pulled out a Royal Guard’s Sword. If he was lucky, it would think he was enough of a threat to be drawn away from Time. The lynel’s head whipped back and forth from him to Time, who was trying to circle around to its back. When the tension became nearly unbearable it roared, baring its mighty jaws, and raised the Crusher high. 

“Time! Get back!” cried Wild, skittering to a halt. 

Time darted away immediately. He was fast, really goddamn fast, how had Wild never noticed this? Wild barely had time to scream “Shield!” before the lynel slammed the Crusher down with horrific strength and the air around it exploded into a massive fireball. The force sent Wild stumbling backward, a scorching hot gust of air tearing at him. He scrambled for footing as his side screamed. The explosion faded—a quick glance, Time had his shield up, good—and Wild didn’t miss a beat, drawing his last Royal Bow to take the shot while the beast is still stunned from its own power.

The arrow landed perfectly, right in the center of the lynel’s face. It groaned and slumped forward. 

Wild was too far away to get to the lynel’s side in time to mount it, but he found himself right in front of it as it shook off its stun. He hefted the long sword up, up, up, feeling his muscles burn and side throb in pain. Then he brought it down, slashing clean and deep into the lynel’s chest.

But lynel hide was painfully thick. Even such a mighty hit only annoyed it. The beast growled low in its throat and backed up.

An arrow flew into its neck. It wheeled around, teeth bared, and dropped low to the ground. Shit, shit, shit. All Wild’s attempts to distract it meant nothing, apparently. “To the side!” he screamed as the lynel careened forward. Time threw himself to the left, tumbling towards Wild and just barely avoiding its wrath, and Wild couldn’t even gasp in relief as he ran towards him. “The face is extra vulnerable,” he said hurriedly as it gathered itself and turned. He slipped Time a stamina elixir. “Stun it that way. Let me do the parrying.”

Already, it was charging again, but now Time was ready and rolled out of the way with grace. The swing bore down on Wild, its momentum too powerful to stop now, and he waited and he waited and—there! He threw himself backward and felt the familiar sensation of his focus narrowing, the seconds dragging themselves out. He could feel his heart pounding wildly in his chest, even with the slowdown, and every breath was perfectly audible. It was all too clear. His hands sweated around the sword and he dashed in, slashing once, twice, three times, four times in perfect succession. The beast yowled. 

Wild let out a breath and it all returned to normal.

The lynel growled and sprung backwards. It tipped its head back, sucking in air. 

“Breathes fire!”

“Good news—“

“Yeah, yeah, I know! Just run to the side again!” 

The first blast went to Time, who hadn’t drunk the potion yet and it showed. He dodged, but barely. 

The second went to Wild, who parried and grit his teeth at the jolt that still hit him. 

It sent another burst of flame at Time, and, as he ducked away, it sensed weakness. It whipped out its Crusher.

The pain in Wild’s side was unnoticeable with the adrenaline. He was sprinting forward, then he was jumping over the flames, and he whipped open his paraglider to catch the hot updraft. His heart pounded in his ears. The bastard was _still_ going after Time, not at all according to plan, but he was no stranger to getting a little desperate during lynel battles. The bow was out in a second. He knocked an arrow and breathed in sharp as the world narrowed to his point of focus. He could hit it. He _knew_ he could.

The arrow whizzed right by the lynel’s face, missing it entirely. 

Time saw the charge coming and swung his shield up, catching the blow, but it cost him. The shield groaned under the force of such a powerful attack, bending as easily as if it were made of wood. Time staggered and even as far up as Wild was, he could hear the curse Time let out as the power behind the swing rocked him. The lynel didn’t even look bothered. It was already rearing up for another attack.

This time, when Wild fired, he didn't miss.

It shrieked again, stumbling and clutching at its face. Wild could at least do this part right. The updraft carried him to the perfect position, and he laughed aloud as he closed his paraglider and dropped right onto the lynel’s back. He brought out the sword and stabbed into the lynel’s back again and again and again. Each slice was vicious, sinking deep into the lynel’s thick hide. It howled in agony and began to buck, thrashing, anything to get him off.

An arrow hit it clean between the eyes. Time, absolute blessing, landed a perfect shot.

The beast slumped again and Wild took a little too much delight in tearing into it. His arms strained painfully as he swung the longsword. Sweat poured from his brow. He slashed into its neck over and over, so close to tearing through and landing the killing blow. Blood oozed from its thick hide, coating his fingers. His hands were shaking. He _couldn’t_ stop now. 

The lynel screamed, a wretched, awful noise, and when it bucked it threw him off in an instant. 

Wild hit the ground with a nasty _THUD_. He rolled with the blow for far, far longer than he usually would. He couldn’t feel his sides, but the important thing was ending this battle before Time got hurt. He thrusted his sword into the ground. His hands kept shaking. His heart was pounding too fast. More arrows flew at the lynel, but it turned away from Time, finally deciding that Wild was what needed to go. Wild used the sword to stagger to his feet. 

...Were his legs shaking? He yanked the sword out of the ground. Fuck, that’s heavy. Was it always that heavy? He was panting. The lynel was—what was it doing, it was coming over here, it was swinging that fucking Crusher but it’s okay Wild knew how to handle this—

Wild tried to flip. His muscles refused to cooperate. The Crusher slammed into his side and he heard an awful _CRACK_ and just like that everything was gone.  
  


The breeze on his face.

His eyelids were so heavy…

 _OPEN YOUR EYES_

Wild blinked. It was… dark? 

His eyes adjusted quickly. A ceiling made of logs… he was lying on a really hard bed… his Champion’s tunic was off… fuck, everything hurt. That was not an exaggeration. _Everything_ hurt.

“Must I save the lecture?” 

Wild muttered vaguely to himself a lot before realizing that Time couldn’t hear him. It hurt to breathe. Like, a lot. “Unhhhm,” he mumbled. “Please.” He wasn't sure he actually said that. He might have just grumbled incoherently again. He flexed his fingers and bent a leg. That sent his side screaming.

Time slipped into his field of view. “You’ve been in and out.” His voice was strict, carefully controlled, which only made Wild more anxious. “What do you last remember?”

Wild shifted a little and immediately hissed. Okay, his long-neglected side was not at all happy with him. The words took a long time to form in his mind, and even longer to come from his mouth. “Uh... a lynel got a good hit. I couldn’t dodge in time.”

Time did that _tch_ noise he stole from Legend as he leaned over Wild. “Follow my finger,” he said. Wild followed it with his eyes as he moved it back and forth. Time was satisfied enough to sit back on the log stool he pulled over. “Maybe you ought to have kept the stamina potion.” His tone was deceptively casual in the way that Wild had learned through a lot of trial and error meant he was upset. 

Very very upset.

“‘m sorry,” he muttered. He tried to sit up, but Time rolled his eye and pushed him right back down. His side was throbbing. “I _am_ ,” he insisted, some clarity coming to him. “When I woke up here… my side already hurt. I w’s worried about where all of you were, so I ignored it… climbed all over…”

“ _Wild_.” Time’s tone was admonishing, but softer than it was before.

“I know,” he said, though it was very slurred. “Pushed myself too hard. ‘m sorry.”

Time sighed, long and exhausted. He at least seemed thankful that Wild was willing to admit it.

“Shouldn’t have been a lynel here,” Wild said blearily. “Shouldn’t have only taken… one hit.”

“No?” 

Wild blinked. It took a lot of effort. “Not here. Fuckin’... _lynel_ on the Great Plateau… and that strong....” 

Time only hummed. He was rustling through his bag as Wild talked. 

Wild rested his head flat on the bed and stared straight up at the ceiling. It was still very dark. Must have been nighttime. 

“Don’t sleep just yet.” Time slipped back into his field of view, holding an uncorked red potion. He tilted Wild’s head up with a firm hand and Wild couldn’t even find the energy to protest like he usually did. He took the bottle with trembling hands and greedily gulped it down, feeling its familiar warmth rush through him. The shrieking pain in his side and chest softened. “The lynel shattered part of your ribs,” Time informed him. “I fed you one while you were asleep, too. The potions will heal most of it, but there isn’t much we can do for—“ he nodded towards Wild’s side, which he’d covered in bandages, though Wild could tell through the gaps that it’d bruised black and purple and the wound was split right open “—that.”

Wild sighed. All that did was worsen the pain in his chest. “It‘s that bad, huh?”

Time leveled him with an even more impressive glare than usual. “Yes.”

He gestured vaguely to his hip only to realize his Slate was gone. “Mmn. Slate. Fairy.”

“Slate. Fairy,” Time said with just a hint of dryness. He picked Wild’s Slate off the floor and let the fairy out. It fluttered around a bit, casting a gentle pink glow on the both of them that reflected brightly on Time’s armor, and settled on the man’s open palm. He tilted his head and smiled at it in the tiny, soft way he reserves just for fairies. “Here, little one, if you would…” 

The fairy leaped off of Time’s hand and circled above Wild, its healing magic flowing over him. Already he felt better. And much more sleepy.

He heard Time thank the fairy distantly. “I don’t think I can keep my eyes open,” he tried to say. He isn’t sure if he succeeded before he slipped back into darkness.  
  


The dawn of the second day brought rain in torrents.

Wild realized when he woke up that he was in the Old Man’s—the King’s cabin. There were no actual doors to the cabin so the rain poured in through the wide, open doorway. 

Either it almost never rained in the other Hyrules, or their little group had been very lucky (and none of them have _ev_ _er_ been lucky), but they only got stuck in storms in his world, so the rain had started reminding him of home. Even the particularly harsh pitter-patter of this downpour against the roof was almost soothing enough to put him right back to sleep. 

There was nothing like traversing the fields of Hyrule just after a rainstorm when the air was still wet and cool and taking a deep breath rewarded him with the soft smell of petrichor.

Time sits to the side on one of the log stools, doing his best to avoid the rain from the doorway. He was leaning over the table and scratching out a letter. He hasn’t taken his armor off, the metal-coated in thick, purplish monster blood that Wild didn’t really register when he woke up last. The fairy apparently doesn’t mind this and has settled on his shoulder.

He pushed himself up into a sit with a surprising amount of effort. His limbs didn’t want to move. The bolt of pain he expected from his side didn’t come. The wound still throbbed angrily, but he took a deep breath in and didn't feel his chest screaming at him. His ribs were healing up nicely. As he rubbed his fingers against the thin bandages, fresh ones, the covered wound felt less sensitive than before.

“Time?” he said. His voice was a croak.

The fairy chimed and flitted behind the man’s larger form. Setting down his letter, Time glanced back at him. “You look better.”

Wild shrugged. _Ow_. “Not dead,” he said helpfully.

Time only shook his head. “I’m not surprised, even with wounds like those. You may well be the most durable person I’ve ever met.”

Wild grinned.

“Only because you’re so reckless, of course.”

Wild frowned.

The rain should be putting a chill in the air, but he felt a little hot. His stomach churned.

“You did a number on that beast,” Time continued. “We were lucky it only took another good swing to take it down so I could take you somewhere safe quickly. I understand you wanted to help me against an enemy I’ve never fought, but you need to be more aware of your own limits.” His tone sharpened. “Wild, remember we’re a team, even if it’s only the two of us for now.”

C’mon. The sentimentality worked on him every single time. 

Even Wild can hear how guilty he sounded when he replied, “ _Especially_ ‘cause it’s only the two of us.” He cringed but pushed on. “I’m sorry.”

He might as well tell Time what he learned from Hylia, but… anyone with eyes could see how much Time didn’t like the Goddess. It was hard to find the words.

“I spoke to the Goddess Hylia,” he said tentatively. Immediately, Time’s face shuttered. Wild tapped his fingers together nervously. “We’re the only two up here. Apparently, the rest of us are scattered all over Hyrule.”

“You spoke to… the Goddess Hylia.” Time’s tone was flat, which was somehow worse than him sounding angry. “Even Sky hasn’t spoken to her.”

Wild swallowed. “At the Temple of Time—“ 

“The Temple of Time? That temple on the hill?”

His voice was dangerously quiet. Wild couldn’t identify the emotion behind it at all.

“...Yes.”

The silence lingered for a long time. Or maybe just a minute that felt like an eternity. Time stared at the floor, clenched one hand into a fist, and drew his lips together into a flat line. He nodded. 

Wild fumbled for his words. “Um...There’s a Goddess Statue, and it speaks to me.” He dug his nails into his palm at the silence that followed. Time was still not looking at him. His face was a mask of calmness. 

“Regardless. The others,” he finally said, after a long silence, his voice too soft, “aren’t here? Wherever we are?”

...Right. He should’ve known better than to think Time would actually talk about something that seemed so personal. “Yes.” He was more than willing to accept a change of subject. “I was thinking about asking Zelda when we got down from here but… this is the Great Plateau. No way up, no way down. It’s totally isolated from the rest of Hyrule.”

As he spoke, Time relaxed back onto his seat. This was a ridiculous and dangerous situation, which means they were back on familiar territory. Whatever the Temple meant to him, Wild knows Time wouldn’t abandon their friends out on their own in his Hyrule.

 _His_ Hyrule, how could he forget? “No, there is a way down! My Slate—“

“—still isn’t calibrated.”

“...What?”

Time handed over the Slate. It was just like it was before they switched: pure static where the map should be. His inventory and runes were perfectly intact, but the map refused to cooperate.

“But that doesn’t make _sense_ ,” he muttered. “It’s been a day! The longest it’s ever taken is… I don’t know, an hour?”

“If you think I can explain…”

“Yeah, yeah.” He scowled. Time’s mouth quirked up good-naturedly, but he turned stoic at the distress on Wild’s face. “Maybe all there is to do is keep waiting,” Wild said, biting his lip. “There’s no other way for you to get down. I have my paraglider, but you...”

Time was silent.

“I hate to leave them out there… but I think that’s all we can do right now. I’m _not_ leaving you behind, either,” he added with ferocity. “You saw that lynel!”

“If that’s what you think is best,” said Time, surprising Wild with how easily it came. “We’ll give it one more day.”  
  


Wild slept like a rock for the rest of the day. His recollection of their switch was hazy, which was weird in and of itself, but in the moments he drifted between consciousness and sleep he remembered more about the horde of moblins, led by that shadow. It was a rough fight. He’d been pushing himself hard then, too, so maybe it was only right that he’d fall to a lynel in one hit after climbing all over the Great Plateau.

He didn’t dream. He knew that much. When he woke for good it was in the middle of the night, and the full moon was high in the sky. There was always a chill on the Great Plateau, but now it was even more present. It was not the kind of chill that came with the height.

Time was gone.

Wild wanted to be concerned, but his eyelids were so heavy. He drifted back to sleep. 

When he woke again, Time was back, standing in the doorway. He looked east, towards where the sun will eventually begin its slow ascent. “The Great Plateau…” he said. “I was wondering when I’d heard that name from you before. You woke up here.”

“Yes,” said Wild dully. He had laid out a lot of the parts of his life in broad strokes, vague, distanced from the feeling.

“You must have been very lonely.”

It wasn’t really pitying or sad or anything of the sort. Wild couldn’t tell why he was saying it at all.

“I guess,” he mumbled. He curled into himself, pulling his knees up to his chest for warmth. “My Hyrule’s a lonely place.”

The thought lingered. Time finally said, half to himself, “This cabin doesn’t look so old.”

Wild stared at his own shaking hands. “It was an Old Man’s not so long ago.” It didn’t sound right, saying it out loud. “Was this where you woke up? After we switched?” His eyelids were growing heavy again. 

“Yes. A little before noon,” Time said, picking at bandages on his forearms. When did those get there? Wild blinked and found it too hard to open his eyes again. TIme said nothing more.

On the dawn of the final day on the Plateau, Wild made breakfast, hunted, and then watched Time shine his sword three times or so while staunchly refusing to look at the Temple before he was forced to confront that his Slate wasn’t fixing itself anytime soon, and Time was effectively stranded. 

He was not panicking over this. He wasn’t. He even told Time this out loud, to reinforce the fact that he was definitely not panicking. 

In the middle of Wild’s not-panicking, Time set his hands squarely on Wild’s shoulders and said, “We don’t need your paraglider. I have something. It’s… something of a last resort.”

A _last resort_? “Are you trying to freak me out?” 

Time gave him a remarkable neutral-disappointed face before he turned to rustle through his bag and pulled out a strange-looking mask. It was wooden, with big, sad gold eyes and three green leaves poking out of the top of its head, and a strange snout. It looked like it was about to burst into tears. It took Wild a moment or two to place it as an enemy he’d seen in Time’s world, a deku scrub. 

“Um,” Wild said.

Time put the mask on.

He let out a weird, horrifying groan as it seemed to fuse with his skin—what the fuck—there was some kind of crunching and snapping noise, like bone being broken—what the _fuck_ —and Time’s knees buckled as he throws his head back, clutched at his face, and screamed in agony.

Then there was a deku scrub standing in his place. 

It was a short, stout little thing, probably even smaller than Wind, with a melancholic face nearly identical to the mask except a nasty scar along one of its wide, sorrowful eyes. It looked painfully young. “It’s hard to watch, I know,” said the deku scrub—Time—in a child’s reedy voice. He might’ve been making fun of him. Wild was in a little too much shock to register the tone.

“What… the fuck?” said Wild. There was nothing else to say.

The deku scrub hobbled over to him. “I’m very light now, and very small, so I can hold onto you just fine while you use the paraglider. Much easier than me and 20 extra pounds of metal on your back, I’m certain.” Even this confident statement sounded wobbly coming from the deku scrub. 

“You’ve… put a lot of thought into this, Time.” Wild scrunched up his face as he stared. It’s true, carrying Time in his regular form would definitely not have worked out. Time’s solution was even more backwards than Wild’s own usually were, but… not like he could think of anything better to do. “I can see why you didn’t show this off when we were talking about masks. That was…” 

_Horrifying_ didn’t really cover the intensity of it.

“Imagine living it,” Time said. In this form, Time’s big, beady eyes always are a little sad and his childlike voice was strange and wobbly, so Wild couldn’t tell exactly how sympathetic or joking he’s trying to be. Then again, nobody could usually tell that with Time to begin with. 

Seeing and hearing Time as a child, even a deku scrub child, was so _bizarre_. It’d always felt like he was never a child at all, that he’d just kind of sprung up battle-hardened and experienced. 

Time cut off his thoughts. “Well, I think we’ve left the others out there long enough. If you’re ready to go…”

Faintly, Wild heard himself say, “Right.” Why was Time so calm about this? He had a distinct feeling that Time should _not_ have been so calm about an agonizing transformation into a different species because he put on a mask. But he just said, “OK. Actually, come on, up.”

It was truly impressive how even in this form Time managed to radiate disapproval. But he scampered over and let Wild hoist him up. Time was so light that Wild heaving him upwards nearly flung him off, and he had to cling to Wild’s arm as Wild doubled over laughing at almost sending their leader flying. After some maneuvering, he carried Time in a piggyback. 

“I, for one, can’t _wait_ to tell Twilight that I gave you a piggyback ride,” Wild said while they made their way down to the cliff. 

Time bopped him with a light wooden fist. “No one will ever believe you.”

They staggered to a halt at the cliffs. Hyrule Castle loomed in front of them. 

“Well, Cook, this is your Hyrule. Where to? You wanted to see Zelda?”

He fumbled a little under Time’s sudden expectations. “...Well, yes. When in doubt, go see her.” He shot Time a mischievous grin. “Now hold on tight.”

Time yelped (yes, _really_ ) and clung his little wooden arms tightly around Wild’s shoulders as he whipped out his paraglider, sprinted forward, jumped, and soared off the cliffs. 

Deku Time barely weighed a thing, but Wild could see his strange snout of his periphery, and even in this feeble little form, he was strong enough to keep clinging as they gently floated towards the ground. Dueling Peaks stood sturdy to the west, and below them Central Hyrule was awash in sunlight, rolling plains rising and falling. Like always, Wild’s stomach soared with the thrill of being in the air, and he closed his eyes as the wind brushed his cheeks. 

His arms didn’t even ache as he guided them carefully to the garrison ruins at the Plateau’s base. His feet brushed the wet grass, then he staggered to a stop and closed his paraglider sharply. 

“Easy,” he said. 

Time’s small arms unhooked their vice grip around his neck and he dropped to the ground with a little warbly “oof.” He trembled as he tried to regain his bearings. “I see why you and Wind do it. That was… strange, but fun.”

Wild rolled his eyes. “You’re the last person who should be talking about _strange_ right now.”

“Oh. Yes.” Time ran his stubby fingers up along his… jawline? What _was_ that on a deku scrub? He found what he was looking for, apparently, then dug his fingers in, pulled the wooden skin away, and yanked hard. _What_ the fuck. The mask came right off. In a flash of light, Time was his normal self again. No screaming this time?

Time blinked down at the mask in his hands, then flexed his fingers as if to remind himself they were there. He pulled out his bag and slipped the mask right back in. 

Wild stared at him for a long time.

“I… uh...” 

Time glanced up. 

“I… won’t say a thing,” said Wild. 

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t curious, but everyone in their little group had always been curious about Time, and he’d have no right to put his secrets out there like that. Even if said secrets were…well, like _that_. 

Time blinked at him in the slow way Twilight did when he was surprised. “Thank you.” 

That’s that, then. Wild shadowed his eyes with a hand and glanced up at the sun. “We’ll probably get to the castle before sundown. It’s a pretty straight shot. There are roads, but… they’d make us take longer, honestly. Plus—“ He jabbed Time’s side with an elbow and hissed at the pain of hitting his funny bone directly against armor. Time poorly stifled a chuckle. “ _Plus_ ,” he said again, “where’s your adventuring spirit? It’s more fun going your own way.”

“If I were our Veteran, now would be the time to say something like, _I’m already starting to regret this_.”

“We’ll be fine! Zelda took out most of the Guardians. And we can see forever.”

Time inhaled deeply. He squeezed the bridge of his nose between two calloused fingers, then let go and nodded. There was a strange look in his eye. 

“We’ve got it handled,” Wild reassured with a grin he didn't really mean. “C’mon. We have a princess to visit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone !!  
> this story is a very long time in the making. i started it around the jp 20th anniversary of majora's mask (april 27th 2020) when i was finishing up botw and got a little emotional seeing the names of time's old friends on the map. i did like 3 different drafts and was unhappy with all of them, had my attention stolen from zelda for a while, and then finally came back to this one and got a huge burst of inspiration. i'm not that into the fandom outside of like. time-centric content so....i hope this goes well! i kept picking at this first chapter forever and ever even while writing the other ones so i decided to just throw it out there so i couldn't try to pick at it anymore.
> 
> i think time and wild are very similar as characters (or at least i interpret them as being very similar). i always thought botw's plot was kind of just ocarina + majora with amnesia instead of the time travel, but it's theme and presentation was totally different. i had SO many ideas for how i wanted them to bond, but this is what came out at the other end...
> 
> the other boys will appear starting chapter 3!! up next: zelda!
> 
> find me on tumblr @ archangelgf


	2. Silent Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The food was really good, and he said it out loud. Zelda just screwed her face up and replied, “You’d eat anything and say it’s good, Link.”
> 
> “I’m sure that isn’t true,” Time said idly. “Wild must have taste. He’s a wonderful chef.”
> 
> Wild’s heart warmed. Zelda snorted and tilted her hand in a more or less motion. “Sure, he is… but he also eats rocks.”
> 
> “Rocks are a delicacy.”
> 
> Zelda choked on her water as Wild cackled. She shook her head, thumping her chest with one hand. “You two really are the same person,” she muttered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im not CRAZY happy with this chapter but. it sets up what i wanted it to set up so we'll call that a success. also there's castle town angst and REPRESSION and time being a dad so really what more could you ever desire  
> botw zelda is...insanely fun to write. so is paya actually. we probably won't be seeing them again for a little while but i hope you enjoy them while they're here! :)

**TWO - SILENT PRINCESS**

CENTRAL HYRULE

Wild was watching Time like a hawk.

It was his world, but Time was walking ahead of him. Wasn’t a big deal. Walking to the castle was just about a straight line. And he wanted to watch Time—partially because Time always walked ahead of them when they were in a group, so it was kind of comforting, and partially because he wanted to see what he was thinking. 

It was hard to tell. A lot of the Links didn’t like his Hyrule. Legend and Warriors grumbled to each other nearly every time they passed through, and it… hurt, a little. (Shame needled at him for thinking of Legend and Warriors so rudely after not thinking of them for three days.) He just loved his Hyrule a lot. It bloomed in the face of adversity. And he liked the others’ Hyrules, but it wasn’t like they weren’t weird either! Wind’s ocean made travelling a pain. Twilight’s was swamped in shadow and grit. Hyrule’s was a hellscape. And Time’s… Time’s was nice during the day. But there was something Wild didn’t like about it at all once the sun went down. So it hurt just a little to see them look down on his home after all the places they’d been.

Regardless, he couldn’t make out the look on Time’s face.

Was he judging Hyrule Field? The quiet, the empty, the rotting houses? Was he judging Wild for it, too?

Well. Probably not. Time didn’t seem like the kind of person who would judge someone on a thing like that. But sometimes he just looked at Wild in such a strange way, not angry, not disappointed... was it resentful? Or Wild was looking too much into something that wasn’t there. It didn’t seem like Time to do that. It just made Wild nervous, sometimes, being alone with Time, unoccupied. That was all. 

...He didn’t want Time to see the Ranch Ruins. That was the one thing he _definitely_ wanted to avoid.

Wild slowed and pulled out the Slate. “Time,” he said, and when Time looked over he pointed to two skull-shaped markers on the map. Time’s lips twitched up in a little smile. “There’s a Guardian to the east and the Guardian to the west. All of them should be dead, but I’m taking us east because—“ he faltered, eyes flickering to Time’s and then away, Hylia above he was a bad liar “—there are little patches of forest up there so it’s easier to take cover if any of the Guardians are awake.” 

Time nodded. “I trust your decision,” he said, calm and reassuring. It churned Wild’s stomach.

They travelled past the Garrison ruins. The Guardian was as dead as a machine could get. Its legs had given out, all its lights had dimmed. Hyrule’s tattered, broken flag waved over its corpse, declaring a desperate victory.

Hyrule Field was quiet. Too quiet. Almost no monsters were around, yes, but something else was wrong. There was no birdsong, no sound of crickets, no scampering of deer, no matter how far they walked. The walk took about five hours, but between his aching side wound, the uncanny silence of Hyrule Field, and Time’s quiet nature, Wild felt like it took days. He liked the quiet when he travelled, but when it came to Central Hyrule, the main site of Calamity Ganon’s wrath, he wished Time would just _say something._ Or that he himself would have the courage to. Whichever. The sky bled orange as he picked up the pace, finally walking in front of Time. 

Passing by the site of his ceremony, the Sacred Ground, was nearly enough to make him regret bringing Time this way at all. “Hm,” he heard Time murmur behind him. He glanced back to see their leader frowning thoughtfully at the raised platform. Wild bit his lip, too hard, and kept walking. 

Finally, he brought them to a halt.

“This is Castle Town,” he said.

He knew what Time saw. The Castle Town walls were just shadows of their former selves; topped with rotted Hyrulian flags, lovingly, painstakingly carved, and shattered. Chunks were missing everywhere. There was just enough left of it to see what it was once and that only made looking at it even more miserable.

He didn’t want to look Time in the face as they stepped through the entryway. He thought on the Plateau that he was ready for this, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t ready at all.

The town itself, too, was just as he’d left it. The ground was gray and ashy. Brittle grass that must have been dead for years crunched under their feet and even the clear sky above seemed less bright, somehow, inside the walls. 

No signs of life were present; no houses even remotely intact, no road that wasn’t cracked and falling to pieces. The most structure here was a few remaining walls and beams of buildings, slanting, old wood rotting away, all bound by neat plots as a haunting bit of structure amidst the chaos. In the center of town was a fountain, just like in Twilight’s Hyrule. Wild was certain it’d been a statue of the Hylian Crest, but all that remained were the wings, chipped and worn. At its base, a rusted sword and shield. (Wild had never been able to make himself touch that sword and shield.)

Behind him, Time drew in a sharp breath. Wild winced. He stopped and stood, waiting for Time to speak. _Just get it over with, please._ Once upon a time his regiment had trained here, and hundred of nobles had loitered here, and the temple must’ve been full to bursting with worshippers, and those houses had people living and laughing in them, and Wild was the reason they were all dead and he knew that. 

He chanced a look over his shoulder. Time was staring at him in that strange way again, the way Wild remembered on the walk here. Not disappointed, not disgusted, not horrified or angry or hostile, not as Wild expected. But the look on his face was deeply ugly. 

Was it... bitterness? That didn’t seem right, either.

Time caught Wild’s gaze, blinked, and shook his head, and the moment was gone. 

“It’s... quiet,” Time said with great effort. “But not like the rest of your Hyrule is.”

He was right about that. It was different here. Everything was dead, even the sky and the dirt and the grass. 

“The Calamity lived in the castle for a long time,” Wild said, trying hard to keep his emotions from tainting the words as he spoke them. “The Malice... it was like… it was like an infection. It spread.” He gestured wide with his hands.

He glanced back over his shoulder again. _An infection,_ Time mouthed, his brows furrowed. 

Wild couldn’t stop thinking about the way Time had looked at him. He was good, Time, good about keeping their chins up when times were rough and supporting them unconditionally. But surely he must be holding something back to do that, right? If the way Wild had let his Castle Town be devastated _did_ upset him, he’d never say it, and that was even worse than him telling Wild to his face.

“Wild, I’m sorry,” Time said suddenly.

_No platitudes. Please._

“I have seen towns ravaged by Ganon before, but… never like this. To destroy a place like this so completely… he must’ve been terrifyingly strong.” His tone sharpened. “And unthinkably cruel. That _pig_ ,” he spat.

Ganon. Time had always been more acerbic towards it than any of the rest of them were. Was that where the bitter look came from? He wasn’t sure.

“It wasn’t like you did it, don’t apologize,” Wild said, but he knew that wasn’t what Time was apologizing for. 

After a pause, Time touched his shoulder. His hand was heavy. “We shouldn’t stay here any longer,” he said. “We need to see the princess.”

“Yeah,” said Wild. He shook himself out of the daze the dilapidated ruins always seemed to put him in. “Yeah. you’re right.”

  
  


There were two interesting things at the castle’s gates: one, a Silent Princess, blooming up from the gray, dry earth, bright white and blue against the dull and dusty gray ground. Two, something that Wild didn’t recognize at all.

“I don’t remember seeing that the last time I was here,” he muttered.

Time stepped up next to him, setting his hands on his hips. “It looks like your Sheikah tech,” he mused.

That it did. It was set in the ground, a glowing circular symbol inlaid with another glowing circle, and at its very center, there was a glowing Sheikah eye. It was definitely Sheikah architecture, but it wasn’t nearly as complex as the ancient kind he was familiar with. Instead of being a constant blue like most Sheikah tech, the glow changed colors. Light blue to orange to nothing to blue again. 

“Your Zelda is very interested in Sheikah technology, yes? Perhaps we could ask her.”

Wild flushed a little thinking about how much he’d talked up his Zelda. Hylia, it felt weird calling her _his_ Zelda. “I’m not sure that she’ll be so happy to see me after I’ve been gone so long. If we can get her to loosen up a bit, yeah, I’m sure she’d know.” He set a hand on his chin. “Maybe this is part of renovations.”

“ _Ah_ ,” said Time. It took Wild a great amount of restraint to not snap, _and yes, there_ ** _are_ **_renovations,_ because Time hadn’t said anything. He just knew how ruined Central Hyrule looked, and what someone like Time must think when they saw it. It wasn’t anybody’s fault but his.

  
  


Their walk up Hyrule Castle was relatively quiet ( _too_ quiet, Wild thought) until they reached the First Gatehouse.

“M-Master Link!” hollered a trembling voice. 

A young woman stood in the door to the Gatehouse, a short girl with long white hair half-tied up in a bun. Her hands were set on her hips, but her shoulders were drawn together, as though she were trying to hide in herself. 

Wild waved jauntily back at her. 

“A Sheikah?” breathed Time. 

“She’s friendly.” Wild waved off his suspicious look.

“M-Master Link, please, um, please follow m-me,” Paya stammered. She was wringing her hands now, but she looked Wild in the face as she talked, which was better than he was used to from her. “The Princess… Her, uh, Her Highness Princess Zelda w-would like to see you and your uh...” Her eyes darted to Time and she went bright red. “Your, uh, companion! In the Sanctum!” she squeaked.

Paya turned on her heel and let out a hefty sigh, her shoulders slumping. Time raised an eyebrow at Wild, but he only shook his head, trying to stifle a laugh. Poor Paya. She was sweet, but her crush made it so easy sometimes.

Paya led them up the winding path to the Sanctum with quick, light steps. The higher they went, the easier it was to see the reconstruction going on at the castle. It wasn’t very elegant, but broken roofs and walls were being patched up everywhere, and the Guardian corpses that littered the higher parts of the castle were being deconstructed, probably so the Sheikah could use their parts.

“How long has this reconstruction been going on, Miss…” Time trailed off.

“Oh. Oh! Pa-Paya.”

“Papaya?”

If it was possible for poor Paya to get even redder, she did. 

“J-Just Paya!” she near-shouted. “Urr…” She shook her head fiercely and turned away, breathing in deep. When she spoke again, not looking at them, her voice was much more confident. “Her High-Highness asked us to come here a few months a-ago. Most of the elders stayed behind in Kakariko, like my gra-grandmother, but a lot of us younger people were re-really inter...interested. Reconstruc-struction is a little… slow, but we’ve also been doing some excavation with, uh, some of the scientists… in the Forgotten Temple.”

Time tilted his head. “Sounds like you’ve been very busy. Did this start before you left with us, Wild?”

Wild tensed. “I was here when the reconstruction started but I didn’t hear about the excavations or...I left a little before that. Not... with you guys.”

“Y-Yes, you didn’t, didn’t stay for very long, Master Link... “ Paya said. She blushed. “S-Sorry! Th-That’s not a b-bad thing! Oh, _stupid_ Paya,” she mumbled to herself.

“It’s fine, Paya. I’m not… really cut out for this kind of stuff anyway.” He laughed, self-deprecating. He didn’t leave because of the excavations or the science or any of that, really, but he didn’t want Paya to know and he _certainly_ didn’t want Time to, either. He just left because he wanted to, because he couldn’t stand being there anymore, confined and surrounded, and as a Hero that was probably the worst thing he could’ve done. He knew he had some obligation to help rebuild instead of just… wandering. But he didn't know how to do anything besides wander. Time shot him a strange look.

As they approached the Sanctum, Paya stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. “Her, Her Highness will probably ask. Um. Where you’ve been, Master Link. J-just so it doesn’t… come out of no-nowhere.”

“Thanks, Paya,” Wild said quietly. 

She led them inside.

The Sanctum was just like he remembered. Massive, empty, and very, very cold. The place where the floor had fallen out—been ripped out?—under him was carefully covered over with brick and a too-small carpet. The bloody light of the sun poured through the back windows, bathing the room in an orange glow. He hadn't missed it at all.

“The Triforce…” Time breathed.

He meant that symbol in the back of the room, a triangle stacked on two other triangles, the same symbol that appeared on Zelda’s hand. It was on Twilight, Wind, and Wars’ hands, too, and was emblazoned on the Sacred Grounds where he’d been knighted. He felt for a second like a swimmer floundering out in the middle of the ocean. That thing, that Triforce, radiated grand importance, and he knew nothing about it at all.

Standing under that symbol, on the high platform at the back of the room, was Princess Zelda.

“Your Highness, t-the Hero and his companion.” Paya swept into a bow, her voice stronger than he’d ever heard it. She gestured to them and stepped aside.

Zelda stepped forward, walking to the edge of the platform. She was wearing her old light blue shirt and black pants, and her hands were clasped behind her back. Her expression was stormy. He’d been gone for weeks, months, maybe, without any word. He couldn’t blame her for being angry, even though the sight of her disappointed gaze made his skin crawl.

“Speak, Hero,” she said coolly.

“Your Highness… you....”

She arched an eyebrow. There were a lot of things Wild wanted to say; he wanted to say, _I didn’t mean to leave you forever_ or _don’t be angry with me,_ or _I’m sorry about everything_. What he actually said was:

“You cut your hair?”

He distinctly heard Time muffling a laugh in disbelief.

Zelda, to her credit, didn’t even look surprised. “Yes, Sir Knight,” she said with venom, “I cut my hair.” _Sir Knight_? That stung. As he floundered for a response, she turned her eyes to Time. “And my greetings to you, sir.”

“Your Highness.” Time bowed. “Forgive my presumptuousness, but if it’s Sir Link’s disappearance without sending word that displeases Your Highness, I have an explanation.”

It was in times like these that Wild envied Time’s easy confidence, born from so much experience. Surely when he was a knight he knew how to hold himself like that and talk like a noble, when he talked at all. Surely he had something like Time’s charisma and wisdom before he died, but now all that was left was...

“ _Really_ ,” Zelda said dryly, her eyes narrowing. “Speak, then.”

Time spoke. He told her everything he’d told each of the Links Wild had been there to see join them. He said, “Do you know of the Goddess and the Hero’s cycle of rebirth?” and, “The nine of us are being pulled from world to world, each hundreds or thousands of years apart,” and, “We have no idea what kind of evil could require nine heroes,” and finally, “It is what the Goddess wants of us. None of us had any choice in the matter.”

At those last words, Zelda’s gaze dropped to the floor. One of the hands that she’d clasped behind her back moved thoughtfully to her chin.

Wild’s mouth finally decided to start working again. “We came because all of us got separated when we switched worlds. And my Slate isn’t working correctly. And…” He fought hard to keep his voice from shaking. “And you’re the only person that I trust to help.”

Zelda looked back up at him. Her big, blue eyes had gone wide. “Well. I suppose I can’t say no to something like that.” Wild felt his shoulders slump in relief. He had known that she wouldn’t say no, but he’d just thought after him disappearing—“ _However_ ,” Zelda said, interrupting his thoughts, “it will be on one condition.”

Wild and Time exchanged uncertain glances. “What is it?” Wild asked.

“If I grant you my aid... will you bring all those heroes back here to visit once you find them all?” Zelda asked quickly, her voice giddy. “And I can ask them about their time periods—our history?”

It cracked the tension in the air in two. Time, still looking at Wild, raised his eyebrows higher than Wild had ever seen. 

“ _Y_ _es_ ,” Wild said. “Your Highness, one of them is the founder of Hyrule itself. He forged the Master Sword.

“ _What!?”_ Zelda leaned so far forward so fast that she nearly fell over herself. “Why didn’t you say so _before_ ?—And you!” she exclaimed, turning her gaze on Time. “Why, then, you are one of them too—oh, to think I’ve been so rude, you _must_ forgive me—“ She flew down the steps to them, taking two at a time. Wild shook his head fondly. 

“...It’s not a problem at all,” Time said haltingly as she reached the landing. It was, perhaps, the most startled Wild had ever heard him sound. Wild was a little proud.

She bowed her head. “I am Princess Zelda, of course. And you…”

Time chuckled. “My name is Link, as I’m sure you’ve already guessed. We each go by our hero titles. Mine is the Hero of Time.”

Zelda’s lips parted in awe. “The Hero of Time,” she repeated softly, almost reverent.

“...You know of me?”

His uncertain tone made sense. Zelda was one of the few people they’d met who did. 

It was a little strange who was remembered across time. Everyone seemed to know Sky, the people in Time’s time told Four’s adventures as bedtime stories (Wild overheard Time telling Four this to embarrass him), and Legend was legendary (hah) in Hyrule’s time, but after that things got unusual. Wind and his Hyrule knew Time, but not by title, and Twilight knew TIme, but no one else in his Hyrule did. Time was _weird_ , as in, timelines were weird. Time, the Hero, was also weird, but that was its whole own thing.

It really was strange, though, that Time wasn’t remembered more. He just seemed so… important. Maybe it was in the way he carried himself, the air of mystery he deliberately held. On the other hand, Sky’s legacy had lasted millennia, but with his kind face, if you’d made Wild pick between the two just by appearances he’d have never guessed right. 

“Yeah,” Wild found himself saying. He hadn’t thought about it before, but now that Time mentioned it... “We do know you. Zelda talked about you in my Ceremony.” Time and… ugh, he _knew_ this. It was Time and… Twilight and Sky. He bit back a scowl at the fuzziness of his own recollection.

“I did,” said Zelda, much quieter now. “You… you remember. I did.” Wild pulled into himself again, twining his fingers together. The moment lingered; both opened their mouths, neither said anything. Zelda swallowed and looked back to Time. “I spoke of you and some other heroes, too. I admit I hadn’t dared to hope that you were more than just figures from legends, but I see now I was mistaken. Our history is even stranger than I could have imagined.” The pained look was replaced again with a smile, gentler this time.

Time smiled back at her. It was a small thing, but it didn’t look forced.

Zelda pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “You arrived just in time for dinner if you’d like to head down to the dining hall. I could take your Slate to examine and come down when I’m done.”

Even if it was broken, Wild hated to be parted with his Slate. It felt like losing a limb. Time was looking at him again, waiting.

“...That’s... fine,” Wild said. He handed over the Slate, feeling his fingers tremble a little around it. Zelda gave him a strange look as her small hands closed around the device.

Paya walked with them out of the Sanctum, Zelda chattering Time’s ear off the whole time. “So you can all wield the Master Sword, then?” and, “What year are you from? Hmm, no, that isn’t the same system we’re using,” and, “Would you tell me a little about what the Royal Family is like? Or the Sheikah?”

Time didn’t seem to mind the barrage of questions, though he was about as reticent in the face of Zelda’s enthusiasm as he was towards the boys. He wasn’t too aware of where exactly he was in Hyrule’s long and storied history, he said. The Royal Family is powerful, but a little beyond his understanding, he said, and the Sheikah are their watchful eyes in the shadows. As always, he seemed to know more about everything he spoke of than he was saying out loud, but that only amused Zelda. That, at least, made sense, Wild thought as she split off from them with a wave. To her Time must seem like a puzzle, one she couldn’t wait to solve like she solved everything. Wild knew better.

  
  


It was nice to not be the one cooking for once. The Dining Hall was full of Sheikah, mostly young adults or middle-aged, and the table was stocked with all kinds of food. Wild loaded his plate and snagged soup, milk, and bread, and once he was finished with that he went back for seconds.

“...I’ve never seen you eat this much,” Time said.

Wild swallowed a juicy bit of steak. “Yeah, well, I cook for nine people and I only have so many supplies. But if I could...” He trailed off dreamily. Time poorly hid a grin as he took a sip of his own milk.

The Princess appeared sometime after Wild grabbed a bowl of pumpkin stew. She took very little food, herself, and only some water to drink, with her brow creased. She settled across from Wild.

“Your Highness,” Time said. Wild bowed his head to her, mouth full.

“I see you’re enjoying yourselves,” she said with a half-hearted smile. “Um…” She pursed her lips. “I don't want to put this off. You really need to see this, I don’t exactly know how to say it. Your Slate is… infected.”

Wild forcefully swallowed and dropped his spoon in his stew. “What?”

Time frowned, looking back and forth between the two. “Infected,” he said slowly.

Zelda pulled the Slate out of a side pocket and set it face-down on the table. “It was barely noticeable when you first arrived, but look,” she said. The thin line that ran along the side of the Slate was oozing malice. The sight of the thick, magenta-black substance sent a chill down Wild’s spine.

“ _Malice_?” he breathed. “In the Slate?” How had he never noticed? It was emanating the same dark energy as the Shadow.

Zelda rubbed her eyes with a hand. She looked exhausted. “Considering how Ganon infected the Divine Beasts, it was only a matter of time. But the Calamity is gone. It… it can’t hurt us anymore.” Her other fist clenched on the tablecloth. “That evil that you two are fighting… it must have something to do with this.”

Wild straightened up, his blue eyes flickering back and forth from the Slate to Zelda to Time. “Time,” he said, a little desperately, “ _do_ you think the Shadow could’ve done this?”

“The Shadow?” interrupted Zelda, wild-eyed.

“The Shadow is a dark force that might be the reason we’re switching worlds. We think it’s what we’re supposed to be after. It makes enemies around it incredibly strong, but I’ve never seen it… infect objects like this.” Time set his knife down and gave the Slate a hard look. “It certainly isn’t out of the question, though. The fact that it chose your Slate, of all things...”

Frantically, Wild hissed, “How does it know how important that is? I don’t think I’ve ever used it in a fight except for weapons. It could have gone for anything, like, I don’t know, your sword or armor. Unless it’s...“ He stopped mid-sentence and stared, wide-eyed, at Time.

“Unless it’s watching us,” Time finished, grim. “We should have considered that sooner."

Zelda’s words were thoughtful. “Makes enemies brutally strong… corruption… just how powerful _is_ this Shadow?"

Time shook his head. “Even we don’t know.”

Zelda pursed her lips. “There’s been a surge of activity with the Divine Beasts recently. Nothing… bad, per se, not like it was before Ganon was defeated—“ Wild’s tense frame relaxed immediately “—but… strange. Wandering further than they should, crying out at random times in the night. And monsters aren’t as common as they were before you slew Ganon, Link, but they _have_ been getting much stronger.”

Wild intertwined his fingers and set his chin on top of them. His leg bounced frantically under the table. “That sounds like more than the Shadow usually does. It’s just been enemies so far, not… things. Objects.”

Zelda gently pulled the Slate back towards her. “Perhaps not all hope is lost,” she said, half-kind, half-tense. “I can try my best to purify this.”

“Your power—“ Wild started but faltered as she placed a hand on the back of the Slate. She looked at him, opening her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. She shook her head and closed her eyes as the power finally manifested, a brilliant light that emerged from her palm. That symbol again—the Triforce—glowed on the back of her hand like a fiery brand.

The power, brilliant and bizarre, got brighter and brighter until its brilliance was so much that Wild ducked his head and forced his eye away. Time didn’t turn his gaze. After seconds that felt like hours, it peaked in a nearly pure white light and vanished in an instant.

“There,” she said, her voice barely more than a sigh. “It is cleansed.”

Wild leaned over and flipped the Slate face-up, swiping to the map screen. Static hummed for a moment, then a Sheikah eye appeared and blinked. The expansive map of his Hyrule faded in. He heaved a sigh of relief and Time set a careful hand on his shoulder.

“Princess, are you all right?” Time asked, eyeing her trembling hands. 

She brightened immediately and smiled, though her hands still shook. “Yes, yes,” she said breathily. “Yes, I’m… fine.” It took her a moment to come back to herself, with a long, slow inhale and a shake of her head. “Do you think it’s likely that the Shadow could do that again?”

“Now that it’s seen infection work? I don’t doubt it,” Time said.

Zelda breathed in deep. “Okay.” She swallowed and held her hands out palms up, and they glowed brightly and beautifully and painfully, and the glow solidified itself into three golden arrows that shone with the divine light of Hylia. They fell gently into her hands. She handed them to Wild.

“Light arrows?” Wild choked out. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “You’re just—just _giving_ these to me?”

The trembling in Zelda’s hands had worsened and she bent her head, breathing in and out harshly. The effort had taken much out of her. Wild stared for a moment, then reached out, and she jerked away. Her voice shook. “If this conflict is… as important as you and Sir Time make it seem, then you need... everything that could possibly keep you safe. This is... the best I can do with the strength that’s in me now. Clearly, our technology is... of no help.” She laughed bitterly.

Wild felt very fragile. Gently, Time squeezed his shoulder. 

“Please use them if the Shadow tries to corrupt the Slate or any other item you really need,” Zelda said. “Stay safe.”

“Your Highness, I think I...I’ve already asked for a lot from you,” Wild said, feeling Time and Zelda’s eyes turn to him. “But I remember, when I was on my journey, you could see me. Can you see the other Heroes, too? Do you know where they are?”

Zelda frowned. “No, I was merged with the Goddess Hylia back then. She was the one who let me see you.” As Wild deflated, she put a hand under her chin. “But maybe I could… maybe I could feel it out.”

She raised her trembling palms again. Time shot her such a disapproving look that Wild winced from secondhand shame. “Your Highness, you’ll only hurt yourself. You just used a lot of magic, you’re shaking,” he said firmly. “Rest. And _eat_ , Princess, that helps with magic restoration.”

Zelda blinked, startled, and turned to Wild with her mouth open. Wild poorly smothered a smirk.

“I… hm. You’re right,” she said reluctantly. She swallowed a steaming spoonful of mushroom soup. Her eyes widened. She pointed her shining spoon at Time. “Wait! Sir, how did you know? Do you have magic?”

This was just the beginning of Zelda’s next round of questions for Time.

He _did_ have magic, it turned out (Wild had never seen him use it.) Zelda bombarded him with everything she’d missed before: did they have technology like the Sheikah tech here? “Not at all,” Time said, unbothered. What were their relations with the Rito, Zora, Goron, and Gerudo like? “We don’t have Rito, actually,” replied Time, sending Zelda into a fervent ramble about her theories about the evolution of Rito.

Wild didn’t really care about whether Sheikah tech or Rito existed in Time’s Hyrule. But it was... nice, watching two people he’d considered totally disparate interact. He hadn’t really thought about bringing any of the Links to meet Zelda at all before it was made necessary. Hyrule Castle was just so far from everything. And, well. Zelda was the only family he had left. Bringing the Links, who Twilight and Wind called their “brothers,” here… it felt strange and permanent in a way he didn’t exactly like. They weren’t brothers, no matter how much Wild would have liked it if they were because soon enough this whole journey would be over and they’d all go home and they’d never see each other again. Just like that.

“That symbol on your chestplate, sir,” Zelda said.

“No ‘sir,’ please, Your Highness.”

“Then no ‘Your Highness,’ please, sir,” she said with a sweet smile. Wild laughed into his food. Time laughed, too, which he so rarely did. Zelda took a sip of her water and continued, “But really. That symbol. I see it just about everywhere in the castle architecture, those three triangles, I even see it on the back of my hand when I use my power. But I have no idea what it is.”

Time’s smile turned into a strange frown. “No idea at all?” he said. “I admit I thought it was just Wild who didn’t know, not everyone in his Hyrule. Strange. It’s the Triforce. One who bears the symbol on their hand has been blessed by the Goddesses, or so it’s said.”

Wild desperately hoped the way his heart sank didn’t show on his face.

“Personally, I don’t believe in much of that,” Time said, turning back to his food. “It doesn’t matter how much you pray to the Goddesses or what they bless you with, if anything at all. Worth comes from within.”

“Hear, hear,” Zelda said, catching Wild’s eye and smiling in a soft, sad way.

Dinner in the dining hall was… good. He didn’t expect to miss Zelda this much. He felt an ache whenever one of the other Links brought their Zelda up, yes, but talking and laughing with her again made a pit open in his stomach, and how much he’d really missed being at her side hit him all at once. He could never make himself stay with her for long, but in brief moments like these, he was happy.

The food was _really_ good, which he said out loud. Zelda just screwed her face up and replied, “You’d eat _anything_ and say it’s good, Link.”

“I’m sure that isn’t true,” Time said idly. “Wild must have taste. He’s a wonderful chef.”

Wild’s heart warmed. Zelda snorted and tilted her hand in a _more or less_ motion. “Sure, he is… but he also eats rocks.”

“Rocks are a delicacy.”

Zelda choked on her water as Wild cackled. She shook her head, thumping her chest with one hand. “You two really are the same person,” she muttered. Wild hoped it was fond.

Wild eventually remembered to ask Zelda about the strange thing on the ground they saw outside as she slathered goat butter on some bread. “Purah’s working on trying to mimic the Sheikah Slate’s teleportation technology. It’s going pretty well, considering she can’t base it off your Sheikah Slate while you’re gone.” Wild tried to force down his guilt as she frowned. “But with all those strange issues with Sheikah tech now, it’s been getting rather difficult.”

“Maybe we’ll pay her a visit once we’re done finding everyone,” Wild murmured. 

The conversation turned back to more pleasant topics, full of gentle chatter and quiet laughter. They even coaxed Paya into talking with them, too, but of course, she was still incredibly shy towards Wild and Time.

By the end of their meal, Zelda’s shaking had subsided fully, and a bit of life had come back to her face, her eyes shining. “Let me see about the locations of those heroes, “ she said confidently.

“Don’t push yourself, Your Highness,” Wild said, soft. But she had already closed her eyes, pressing one of her hands to her heart. The Triforce flickered to life on the back of her hand. She furrowed her brow, pressing her lips together. “I think…” she breathed, shaking her head, “I can’t see… I can’t get close. But I, yes! I can tell around where they are.”

Wild pulled the Sheikah Slate back out, pinching at the screen to zoom out of the map. His heart pounded at the thought of a lead.

“Eldin… Lanayru…” Her voice was different when she spoke next, radiant and echoing, a pale imitation of the way the Goddess Hylia spoke to Wild before. He scrambled for his Slate as her strange voice rang out, pulling it close to him and tapping at the screen. “Dueling Peaks… Tabantha… Gerudo… Akkala… Faron.” Her breath escaped her in a heavy sigh as she opened her eyes. She brought her fingers to her temples and rubbed, frowning as though she had an awful headache.

Seven locations for seven missing Heroes. Time gently said, “Incredible. We owe you more than I can say.” Zelda's shoulders slumped at his words.

Wild stared down at the seven star-shaped markers he’d placed on the Sheikah Slate map. “Thank you,” he said. He wanted to say so much more to show his gratitude, but he couldn’t even begin to find the words for it.

Zelda lifted her head and grinned, exhausted. Wild missed her already.

Zelda insisted they stay the night after travelling all day. After she brought them to a spare room the Sheikah weren’t using, she pulled Wild aside.

“Link, I… I want to apologize, for the way I behaved towards you when you first arrived. I just thought that you—that…”

( _Did you really think I just abandoned you forever?_ He wanted to say. _I would never do that. How could you think something like that of me?_

But he knew how. They were both in a strange position, here. All they had was each other, and they cared about each other, but they barely knew each other. She knew who he was before, but she didn’t know him— _this_ him, the one who woke up in the Shrine—at all. Of course she’d think something like that.)

So he just said, “I know.” He looked at the ground. “Your Majesty, I wouldn’t…” 

He was quiet for a while. 

“...You’re all I have left,” he finally said.

Zelda looked past him, to the spare room they had just left with its door ajar. She sighed. She looked deeply old and deeply sad.

“Those titles,” she murmured. “Is that why he calls you Wild?” Wild nodded, and she laughed quietly. She took one of his hands in hers and squeezed it. “I think it suits you,” she said. The smile slowly disappeared from her face as she looked at him. “Please come back safe.”  
  


“Can’t sleep?” 

Wild’s voice was a little too loud in the still night air. The balcony that the dining hall opened onto was large and empty and cold, but after tossing and turning all night Wild was just happy to breathe in the outdoors.

Time, who had been resting his arms on the balustrades, turned around and shook his head. He didn’t look too surprised to see Wild. “The bed,” he said.

“Yeah,” Wild mumbled. “Too soft.”

Time hummed in agreement as he leaned back against the balustrades, gazing out over the castle grounds. The view from the balcony wasn’t that interesting. One of those massive pillars that held Guardians sprung out of the castle grounds right in front of the balcony, so it obscured around half of their line of sight. What they could see wasn’t much—the empty, rolling hills of Hyrule Field, and they could just barely see Castle Town to the southeast. Wild was maybe a little glad for it, not having to look out directly over Castle Town. The pillar blocked the Ranch Ruins, too, and Wild’s gut squeezed with guilt as his shoulders relaxed in relief.

Time didn’t say anything else, which Wild appreciated from him. When they were in a group, Time never asked questions when Wild woke from a nightmare when they were at camp, never rambled on if they fell into step next to one another, always seemed to always know exactly when to let a conversation lie. He was often just content with companionable silence, and besides their walk here, that was usually enough.

The thought of having nightmares at camp reminded him of being woken by Twilight in wolf form, whimpering and nosing his cheek. Loneliness pooled in his chest, and then frustration at his own weakness rose and burned it up. He missed Twi, and Hyrule, and everyone. He liked Time’s silence but he really had grown used to the boys’ chatter. And just having one companion was a little off-putting, an awkward space between being on his first quest and being with the Links.

“Do you remember much of it, Cook?” Time asked.

Wild snapped out of his thoughts. “Hm?”

“Castle Town,” said Time.

Wild looked down on the ruins. Bitterness stung his tongue. He had thought a lot about this. He had tried in vain to remember what it was like when he was in the Royal Guard, if it was lively and bustling and full of restaurants and people. It must have been colorful. It must have been bright. He’d stood in the middle of the remnants many times and looked up at the crumbling fountain and waited for that tickle of recognition, for that wave of memory to crash over him and pull him under and drag him down into a sight and sound that was better than the one that he lived with now. But it never came.

“ _No_ ,” he snapped. He winced at his own tone. Gentler, talking for the sake of smoothing it over, he continued, “It was big, I think. And there were a ton of towns outside of it, too, and garrisons and…” _A ranch_ , he didn’t say. “I don’t remember what most ruins looked like. I want to. But I’m kind of glad,” he said before he could stop himself. His eyes flew wide open.

“It’s hard,” Time replied with ease. “Seeing a place you knew destroyed. I don’t blame you for not wanting to know what it was like.”

There was a weird cadence to his voice when he said it, like he was struggling to put it out there. Wild stared at him for a long time, wondering why he wasn’t horrified, or judgemental, or... something. The Time he’d laughed with at the dinner table seemed like such a distant memory. Wild just couldn’t wrap his mind around who Time was, exactly, no matter how hard he tried. He was lighthearted but strict, funny but stoic, so familiar but so unknowable. Like a walking contradiction. Every time Wild expected him to act one way, he acted another. Time’s brow was furrowed as he looked out over Castle Town, but his shoulders were relaxed, his mouth an even line. 

Wild didn’t want to keep talking about this. His mouth opened to say something, anything else, but it got stuck. He wondered again, _What if he really is judging me, but he’s just keeping quiet to keep my morale up?_ And it hurt, either way, to keep thinking about this. That bitterness at not knowing, at being half-himself and half-the him who died, at really being neither... it kept clawing back up into his throat at the sight of Castle Town. It really did hurt. It burned like bile.

So he just said, “Time… are you sure you don’t want to just leave now?”

Time arched an eyebrow. “And so rudely leave the Princess without saying goodbye? After all her hospitality?”

Wild wilted, looking down over the balustrades.

“You need the rest. You’re still injured. Better to let it heal than aggravate it.” Time nodded to Wild’s side, then turned his eye away again, out past the town and towards the fields. Wild’s Hyrule Field seemed infinitely wider than Time’s was, and infinitely emptier, too. Wild wondered yet again how he felt about it. Did it make him sad, to see all those ruins? Did it inspire awe at its size? Did it disgust him?

“We should go to Gerudo first tomorrow,” Wild finally said. “Clockwise around Hyrule.”

“Not to Death Mountain first?” 

Wild pulled out his Slate and pointed at the map. “Gerudo’s down here, then here’s Tabantha,” he said, pointing to the bottom left of the screen. “Gerudo is big, hot, and there’s no civilization there besides Gerudo Town, which doesn’t allow men, and a Bazaar. If one of us is there for too long they’ll probably die. And Tabantha is freezing cold. Eldin is all the way up here…” His finger moved to the top left, “but it’s been three days, and anyone on Death Mountain couldn’t have survived that long without making it down to safety or having protection. There’s plenty of land in Eldin that isn’t lethal. And Akkala, Lanayru, Dueling Peaks, Faron… not that dangerous. Well. Faron is a little electric, but that’s it.”

“You’re right, much as I hate to entertain the idea,” Time said quietly. “Three days with no protection isn’t exactly survivable on Death Mountain.” He straightened up with a sigh. “Well, like I said before, this is your Hyrule. You know it much better than I do. I’m more than happy to let you take the lead.” He patted Wild on the shoulder and headed back inside. “Try to get some sleep, even if it has to be on the floor,” he called over his shoulder, and then he was gone.

A plan was nice. A plan was good. Wild hated being the one in charge of it, but maybe it meant Time trusted him. A bit of reprieve after being made fun of for his plans being crazy for so long was a little nice.

He stayed there for a long time afterward, looking out over the healing Castle Grounds and the devastated Castle Town and where Lon Lon Ranch should’ve been if the Guardian pillar wasn’t blocking it.

He was bone-tired and his throat tasted of bile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter we Finally see another one of the boys!!! in Gerudo...wonder who it'll be :)  
> i think wild must have so many problems with getting attached to people after literally all his friends except zelda died  
> time sees 2 traumatized seventeen-year-olds and is like Is Anybody Gonna Look Out For Their Wellbeing? and doesnt even wait for an answer. he didnt go very in-depth with his feelings on castle town here but oh trust me. he will  
> i fully believe a. wild would hate living in his house in hateno post-botw and b. wild would hate living in the castle post-botw. i think it's not out of the question that he could settle EVENTUALLY but man literally woke up with no idea of who he was and killed a big scary monster and that was it. he's gotta figure himself out!  
> find me on tumblr @ archangelgf


	3. The Gap Between

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He signed, “All of the Heroes are just men. So when they pulled out those clothes, I didn’t want to say anything.”
> 
> “Wild—” Time cut himself off, sighing. “Look at me.”
> 
> Wild’s heart dropped. That was what he used when he scolded Wild for being reckless, when he was especially disappointed in him. But he looked. He didn’t have much of a choice.
> 
> Time’s gaze was exceptionally gentle. He murmured, “Not all of the Heroes are just men.”

**THREE - THE GAP BETWEEN**

GERUDO DESERT

When they left the Castle in the morning Wild found himself lost for words. He was so bad at this. “Take care,” he said, because he couldn’t make himself say “goodbye.”

“Thank you for everything, Your Highness,” said Time, and at her dangerous glare he corrected it to “ _Zelda_.”

Wild was taking them through Hyrule Field, over a teeny bridge that seemed too small to be deserving of a name (Gleeok Bridge, but why?), to Outskirt Stable. His feet led him as though on their own. Time breathed the cool morning air in deep, looking at peace. Wild walked side-by-side with him so he wouldn’t have had to look back when he spoke, but he found himself turning and looking back anyway to the walls of Castle Town. 

Zelda’s figure remained there for a long time, watching them go. He wished he could see the look on her face. No, he wished he could see her face at all. He missed her like he’d been gone for weeks, but he was very glad to leave.

“Something’s on your mind.”

The easy way Time said it made Wild feel like he was seeing straight through him. He really did hate Time’s confidence sometimes. Not like he was wrong... there _was_ something on Wild’s mind, something besides the occasional quiet throb of his side wound when he walked anyway. Something that’d been weighing there ever since dinner last night. He’d just thought he’d been keeping up a better facade… Well. It was Time he was talking to. They would’ve had to talk about this eventually.

“The Shadow,” Wild muttered. “Watching us. It knew my Slate was important, it must’ve seen so much, and I had… no idea.”

“ _We_ had no idea,” Time corrected coolly. He looked away from Wild, whose body relaxed a little with that piercing eye off him. “I admit with all the travelling we’ve been doing in dense forest and caves, the idea should’ve come to me sooner. We need to be more on the lookout when we set up camp, especially at night. It could blend in with anything.” 

A chill ran down Wild’s spine. After so long alone in the wilderness, he almost always knew when he was being watched—you only get stalked from a distance by Yiga so many times before you get used to the feeling. He’d gotten cocky, especially with so many other heroes around. The idea that something’s eyes had been on him the entire time, when he’d thought he’d been so safe…

“I doubt we’re in much danger right now, though,” Time continued, his frown softening at its edges. “Nothing much we can see that can’t see us.”

“Mmm,” Wild said. That much was true. The rolling hills sometimes made it a little difficult to make out ruins, but any moving figure stuck out like a sore thumb even quite a ways away. (Of course, that meant just about any Guardian he could see could see him… and that brought back bad memories.) Still, it was one thing to know it and another to believe it. There could be eyes on him at any time, at any place, and that Shadow…

“Tell me more about those Shrines of yours, Cook,” Time said abruptly.

“...What for?”

Wild knew what for. Time was trying to distract him, he wasn’t _that_ stupid, but there really couldn’t be any harm in playing along. It wasn’t like moping about the Shadow was going to get them anywhere if Time didn’t want to discuss it. Most things didn’t really get them anywhere if Time didn’t want to discuss them.

“Well, they practically cover your Hyrule, and none of us have anything like them.”

There was something he didn’t like about hearing _us_ when there was no _us,_ just Time. “Sheikah tech,” Wild said. “I guess it’s like… training. They were made by the Sheikah 10,000 years ago to help me train to fight Ganon. They could see the future, that’s how they knew.”

“Sheikah that can see the future...” Time squinted at the Shrine they were passing as they walked down a gently sloping hill. Trial of Power, maybe? Wild didn’t really remember them all. Its perfectly smooth, deep gray stone, brilliant blue accents, and strange shape made it stand out perfectly against Central Hyrule’s calm rolling plains. A little mockingbird was hopping around on top of it. Wild had become pretty used to Shrines by now, but he remembered how baffled he was when he’d first come out of the Shrine of Resurrection. No wonder Time was so put off by them. “The Sheikah always were mysterious...I’m not even surprised,” Time continued. Wild snorted. Time’s eye turned back to him. “Do you remember much of what the Shrines were like, then?”

“Remember?”

Time blinked. “Yes, from 100 years ago. Was that not when you were training to fight Ganon for the first time?”

“...It… was,” Wild said slowly. “But the Shrines didn’t work back then because there were none of the Towers. Shrines need those to activate. Back then Zelda studied Shrines all the time, but they’d never open for anybody.”

“...Is that so?”

“...Yeah.”

Time’s good eye narrowed, his brows drawn low and lips pressed together. Though he’d gone into this with the intent to distract Wild, it seemed like whatever Wild had said had gotten to him instead. Why would Time assume they were from a century ago when they were clearly related to the Sheikah Tech he had in his hand now? That didn’t make sense. He clearly needed the training now much more than he would’ve back then, just _look_ at him, and the Shrines were there to train him. There wasn’t much more to it than that.

“When did those towers appear?” Time asked carefully.

“After I woke up… Time, why are you—“

A scream echoed out over the fields. A real Hero surely would’ve wanted to save them immediately, but Wild sighed and thought, _Just my luck_. Time scoffed.

His stomach churned at the sound, but he ignored it because there was screaming to attend to. Said scream came from two distant figures he immediately recognized as Mina and Mils, the treasure-hunting siblings. Wild had been ready to see them picking fights with silver bokoblins like usual, but this time the bokoblins weren’t silver, they were… golden. 

What the hell was...? Why were they _gold_?

“I hate this Shadow so much,” Wild muttered, knocking an arrow on his Royal Bow.

Time put his fingers to his lips and whistled in the way only managing eight rowdy heroes of courage could teach you to whistle. The bokos’ heads snapped up just as Wild’s arrow pierced one’s skull.

The bokoblin that was hit didn’t even blink, grabbing the arrow and tearing it out. Mina and Mils scattered as the monsters hissed and turned to face their new attackers. “Strong bastards,” Time muttered. “Hang back a moment.”

Wild nodded.

Time charged them, and they shrieked in delight as they ran to meet him. But Time stopped halfway and did something bizarre: he lifted one fist to the sky and slammed his other fist to the ground with a yell. A bright ball of fire exploded in a massive circle around him, red-orange flames swallowing up the bokoblins before they could slow to a stop. They wailed in pain, nearly inaudible over the roaring flames. As the fire receded, Wild caught sight of Time spearing one of the bokoblins on his massive Biggoron sword. “Come on!” Time bellowed.

The other bokoblin reared, about to pounce. Wild knocked another arrow and let it fly, and it stumbled back when it was hit, but only barely. He gritted his teeth. This ranged approach wasn’t happening. He put away his bow and darted in to intercept the bokoblin, pulling his Demon Carver off of his back.

Time yanked his sword out of his bokoblin, spattering black blood across the ground and its companion. It staggered to its feet, huffing and drooling black-purple spittle. “Gross,” Wild muttered, slashing the Demon Carver into his bokoblin’s side. His own side throbbed in discomfort. The Demon Carver, designed by Yiga for causing as much pain as it could, messily tears open the flesh with its sharp spikes. But as the bokoblin shrieked at the new wound, Wild noticed the skin on its head was closing, knitting back up over the wound.

This fucking sucked.

“Time, they're healing! We have to make this quick!”

Time made a noise that sounded awfully like a bitten-back swear as he dodged a fierce strike from his spear-wielding Bokoblin.

It seemed like no matter what they did, the damn things won’t _die._ Time got his bokoblin through its stomach and it got back up, then he ran it through again and that seemed like it worked until it got up again. The gold bokoblins fought like wild animals, thrashing, biting at every glimpse of exposed skin with their malice-stained teeth. Covered in armor, Time wasn’t afraid to grab one in a chokehold when it tried to sink its teeth into his arm and throw it on the ground like a ragdoll. He stomped on its chest with a sickening _crunch_.

The monster’s eyes still moved. Wild was forced to look away when his bokoblin staggered to its feet from the ground, black blood pouring from its mouth and stomach wound. It lunged for him.

“The stomach, hah, kills it too slow,” he panted, dodging the swipe of claws. “So it can… can heal. Try the—oh, shit!” Its fingers caught and dug into one of his legs, tearing open his flesh, yanking him in close. “The _heart_!” he screamed over the tears that sprung to his eyes at the pain, kicking down hard with his other leg and knocking the bokoblin hard enough to loosen its grip. He jerked his leg away, swinging down with the Carver, tearing open its golden skin. 

Time’s bokoblin shrieked. It was brutally cut off by the sound of gurgling, then the _sching_! of a quick blade making its mark. 

“I knew it,” Time panted as the living bokoblin in front of Wild spat angrily, malice flying everywhere. “The _head_ , Wild.”

He whipped out his Slate as he staggered away, his leg caked in blood. He had never loved Stasis+ so much. He froze the bokoblin in place, then stumbled back over, lining himself up behind it.

The flow of time moved again for the bokoblin, but not for long. Wild sliced the Carver through its thin neck, decapitating it messily. He crushed its skull with his boot and grimaced as the black blood caked his shoe. Time huffed, slowly pulling the Biggoron Sword out of his golden bokoblin’s head. Thick black blood oozed like oil down the blade. The metal glinted in the sun, but the black blood was so strangely dark that it seemed to absorb the light itself. “Drink that Hearty Elixir. I know you have one,” Time ordered, catching Wild in his flinty gaze. Wild grumbled but couldn’t say no. If it were anything but his leg… They were going all around his Hyrule, Time _needed_ him to be able to walk to lead. He reluctantly pulled a bottle out of his Slate and swallowed the contents, feeling the pain ease, but not disappear.

Mina and Mils cautiously approached from where they’d scattered to. As always, Wild worked very hard to keep himself from thanking them for nothing. That would be really embarrassing in front of Time. “Golden bokoblins. What the hell,” panted Mils, taking the words out of Wild’s mouth.

Mina spat on its dissolving corpse. “Like those silver bastards weren’t bad enough,” she muttered. Her eyes darted up to Wild. “Er—not like we couldn’t handle it, or anything! We totally had it under control!”

“Mina!” Mils hissed. “Thanks, Link,” he continued apologetically. “You sure saved us… Again... Here—”

“No no no,” Wild blurted, glancing at Time, though he usually would’ve taken the reward without question. “Just tell me something. Where’d you guys travel from?”

The siblings exchanged a suspicious glance. “Gerudo,” Mils said.

“Over the suspension bridge?”

“...Yes.”

“Any monsters?”

“Oh! No.” Mils shook his head. “It’s been really strange lately. Not nearly as many, but every time there are, they’re like… that.” He cringed as he nodded at the dead Bokoblin. Its corpse was taking a really long time to dissolve. It definitely was dissolving, its limbs decomposing back into malice, but slower than Wild had ever seen a monster go.

Time _tsk_ ed. “Stranger and stranger.”

“You said it, man,” Mils said weakly.

“We had it _handled_ ,” grumbled Mina.

A light blanket of clouds had begun to roll in by the time Outskirt Stable came into view, its towering horse head immediately drawing the eye. Filtered through the clouds, the daylight was gray, and it made the emptiness around the Stable a little strange. Outskirt Stable was very large, but very quiet, as only a few people resided there permanently. Wild’s hands shook a little as he pulled out his Slate, hummed, and frowned down at the map, and his leg still stung where the Bokoblin clawed it, even though he’d bandaged it up. Time turned to look at him, squinting.

“Wild, I’m a little hungry,” he said. “We’re stopping for lunch, yes?”

Wild glanced up to the sky. At the pace they were going they probably wouldn’t make it to Kara Kara Bazaar before sundown anyway, so it couldn’t hurt. His stomach was starting to ache from hunger, too… guess that’s what he got for travelling with a group and eating at routine times. The body started to expect it. Maybe that was why his hands were shaking. Oh, and then there was that Time must not be used to walking around for twelve-ish hours straight, which was how long it would take if they didn’t stop here... Hylia, did he do this for all eight of them, all the time? Wild didn’t often think of anybody but himself when it came to anything outside of food preferences.

“We can stop,” Wild muttered. “Might as well.”

When they sat down at the cooking pot, the few denizens of the Outskirt Stable balked at Time’s golden armor, polished to a shine as it always was. The nine-year-old, Haite, ducked inside the stable at the sight of him. Time surveyed them all with a careful eye while Wild flipped through his Slate for ingredients, frowning as he saw how low he was getting.

In the end, he decided on making some creamy vegetable soup. He would probably hate eating it, but he had just the right ingredients to make it now and then cook some meat and greens for dinner… that was the kind of planning he was more familiar with. 

He started working on chopping up swift carrots, listening quietly to the _thunk, thunk, thunk_ of the small knife he kept for cooking. Soon enough, he was sprinkling in salt and pouring in his last bottle of milk. The milk bottle had the same logo that the bottles Time drank from did: _Lon Lon_ written around a simple cow. He watched the milk pour slowly into the pot and stirred the soup gently, falling into another old, familiar rhythm. It was easy work, thoughtless, and that was what made it good. Wild was very familiar with this particular meal.

Then all there was to do was leave it to simmer and wait.

Time’s eye didn’t linger on the milk bottle, though Wild didn’t know what he would say if it did. It wasn’t like there was a ranch left. He didn’t even know who was producing those bottles. 

“You really are quite the chef,” Time mused. “If you’d not come along with us, that would’ve made a good career.”

Wild laughed. “No, I’d be too busy rebuilding,” he said lightly, like it didn’t make him a little sick. “Doesn’t really matter, I think. I would’ve come along, even if there was a choice.”

“You would’ve?”

“Mhm.” He reached down and gave the simmering soup a stir, frowning down at the thickening milk. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’d want to stay with my wife, of course. Was I younger, I would’ve felt too guilty to decline, I think. But now? I’ve got quite a life for myself.”

 _Quite a life_. Imagine that. The way everything about Time brightened on the Ranch… there wasn’t a place in his world— _any_ world—that made Wild feel that way.

“I like the adventure,” Wild said, immediately hating himself for it. That wasn’t true, was it? Existing in the wilderness was just his state of being, how it’d always been, not really something he liked or disliked. There was no place for him like the one Time had carved out. And it was just the stupidest, most selfish thing to say... There’s a threat so powerful, so vicious, so destructive that it requires nine Heroes to defeat it, that could cause untold destruction if it wasn’t defeated… but sure, he liked the adventure. Ugh.

...That was a strange thing Time said. _Too guilty_ to say no. 

He thought, not for the first time, about why he was a Hero of Hyrule at all. He was a Hero of Hyrule because he woke up and Princess Zelda told him that was what he was. The self he’d been before didn’t seem to have it much better, either. Knowing his destiny since… however old he was when he pulled the sword, was he twelve? Thirteen? Knowing his destiny that young wasn’t too different from being told what his destiny was from the second he was reborn. Maybe the younger him had loved Mipha, or his family, or… someone. Maybe that was what Link had fought for. But Wild? Wild fought because…

“That’s more than I can say,” Time said with a short chuckle. “I never particularly enjoyed adventuring, even when I was younger. I just hated going back home more.”

Wild pulled his ladle out of the soup and tapped it on the side of the cooking pot, staring at the mixture oozing its way down the spoon’s side. He made creamy vegetable soup all the time at home. It was quick and easy to make, and painless to gather materials for, and once you make a meal into a routine it’s easier to keep it than to break it. But he’d kind of grown to despise the taste. And the routine. And the house. And Hateno.

“You know, I don’t think you’ve ever seen my home,” he said. “It’s pretty nice,” and that was true, even if he had grown resentful of it. Quaint, maybe, was a better word. It was quaint. Wild wasn’t quaint. He missed the picture of the Champions hanging on his wall. Wild bent down and took a deep inhale. He hadn’t had this soup since he’d left Hateno to help Zelda in the Castle. It was familiar and warm, and he’d worried he’d hate it but he found it just… fine. 

Time’s eyebrows shot up. “ _You_ own a house?”

Wild grimaced, trying to brush off the way Time’s shocked tone needled at him. “I do,” he said. “It’s in Hateno. Way down southwest.” The view of Dueling Peaks was blocked by trees, but Wild knew exactly where the mountains lay. “Hateno is its own region, so I don’t think we’ll be seeing it when we go looking for the rest. But we’ll come close.”

“You ought to show me someday. I’d like to see what your house would look like,” Time said. 

Wild’s stomach churned a little at the thought. “Ah, maybe,” he said, trying to stomp down his relief that their search would only take them to Dueling Peaks and that he wouldn’t have to face his little house in Hateno anytime soon.

He excused himself to pick apples from the trees nearby as the soup simmered. Aliza, a young lady with brown hair tied up in a bun, lounged under the biggest, most distant tree and simpered at him as he approached. He greeted her because it was polite to do. 

She squinted. “I know you took care of the Calamity and all, but, have you _heard_ about those new gold monsters attacking people?”

“I _have_ ,” snipped Wild.

“Then clearly you shouldn’t spare the time to talk to me,” she sniffed. “You still have a job to do.”

Wild yanked down an apple a little harder than necessary, fingers digging into thin red skin. He rolled his eyes at her, but despite her rudeness, _you still have a job to do_ was a balm on a pulsing, angry wound.

Mina and Mils were right—all the monsters that usually lingered on Digdogg Suspension Bridge, the wizzrobe on one end, the bokoblin camp on the other, even the hinox in the center, were gone. It seemed killing Ganon had taken them out for good, and the Shadow had been too busy messing with the rest of the monsters to change that. But there was something that was really worrying Wild: Vah Naboris was gone. 

Vah Naboris, the fortress-sized Divine Beast of the Gerudo, usually stood proudly on the mountains that overlooked the Suspension Bridge. The Divine Beasts had all shifted a little and stopped targeting the Castle once Ganon had been defeated, but they didn’t move so much. He couldn’t even see the top of Vah Naboris’ long neck. His stomach squeezed, but there was nothing he could do about it from here. All he could do was ask about it once they found other people.

The path to Gerudo Desert was cramped. It was one of the few places in Wild’s Hyrule that gave him the same feeling the others’ worlds often did. Rock jutted out jaggedly and unpredictably, and the narrow canyon’s walls towered high over them, making the space tight and claustrophobic. Time seemed unaffected, occasionally craning his neck to look up at the wooden platforms that ran along the canyon walls, signs of old, abandoned excavations. The dryness of the air stung Wild’s throat as the temperature slowly crept up, and the claw marks on his leg pulled uncomfortably under their bandages.

Time didn’t know what to look out for, obviously, so Wild had to be the one making sure nothing went wrong. Anytime Time spoke Wild hushed him so his voice didn’t disturb the boulders on the cliffs, and he constantly checked over his shoulder for anything stalking them, though they’d probably hear it before they saw it.

Eventually, he did hear it: snuffling and panting and the scraping of paws on rock. He patted Time’s shoulder, ignoring the way the older man started a little at the touch, and said, “Keep walking. Let me deal with these.”

They were being stalked by a pack of coyotes, wolf-like animals with deep gray fur and soft white underbellies. They were kind of cute. Vicious, though. Wild hated to kill them because they looked a bit too much like The Wolf. It wasn’t worth having them on their trail the whole way, though, so he knocked an arrow and shot at the one in front.

It pierced its chest. Oh, he’d wanted to go for the shoulder, but it’d turned at the last minute. The other two coyotes yelped and scattered, leaving them alone. “I might as well skin this, give me a minute,” Wild called over his shoulder. It was an awful waste to kill something like that and not use it for something. 

When he was done Time was still looking at the corpse of the coyote with a strange, unreadable expression. “Did you need to kill that?” he asked dispassionately.

“I was trying to injure it,” Wild muttered. “Coyotes travel in packs, they’d have stalked us for miles, and they’re aggressive, they’d attack when we got tired.”

“ _Ah_ ,” said Time, unconvinced.

“It’s easier this way,” Wild said. “More merciful, I guess. You kill one, you break up the whole pack.”

Time didn’t look any more convinced, but they kept walking anyway, following the setting sun as it crept down west and painted the sky red.

“A guy like you is _never_ gonna get into Gerudo Town, sir!”

Raising his head from the prime meat he was cooking over the fire for dinner, he looked over to the entrance of Gerudo Stable. “Oh, _Hylia_ ,” he muttered as he caught sight of a brunette with pigtails standing in front of Time, arms crossed. _Traysi._

Time looked utterly unimpressed by her outburst. 

Traysi, to her credit, wasn’t phased by his Neutral-Disappointed Face. She maintained her usual look, which was best described as her radiating the fact that she knew more than you did. “Seriously. Haven’t you heard they’ve gotten even more strict on security than they were before?” 

They what?

Time tilted his head. “What for?”

Traysi laughed in his face. “Like I’m about to tell you that for free! That’s good gossip, sir.”

Wild poked at the meat again and grumbled under his breath. Traysi was a tricky girl to deal with, but if he needed to get into Gerudo Town to ask around, he’d need to know about their security. He stood up. “Good gossip?” Time was saying as he approached.

“...Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of the Rumor Mill?” said Traysi, shoulders slumping. 

Deciding to save Time from the terrible fate of facing Traysi while not knowing about the Rumor Mill, he called, “Traysi!”

Traysi spun around. “Ohhh, hey Link!” she said, beaming. 

“Sorry about him,” Wild said, waving vaguely at Time. “He hasn’t read the Rumor Mill before.” Her mouth dropped open, but he shook his head fiercely and said, “Listen, what were you saying about Gerudo Town?”

Traysi narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think anything should go wrong for _you,_ if you keep doing what you’re doing,” she said. “But your friend here… they might not even let him loiter outside. They’ve been really strict ever since… well…”

Wild leaned in. “Swear I won’t tell.” Her skeptical look didn’t ease. “C’mon, Traysi, you know I don’t spread rumors, I just like to hear about them! Whisper it to me,” he muttered.

“Fine. But only since I admire your drive as a fellow rumor-seeker,” she said tersely. She shot a few suspicious looks around her, leaned in, and whispered as quietly as she could: “I hear they _arrested_ a guy who trespassed in Gerudo Town. And he was carrying—get this—the Sword That Seals the Darkness.”

Wild’s mouth dropped open. He turned immediately to Time. Time just dropped his head and pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers, sighing.

Only one of _them_ could be cosmically unlucky enough to get locked up in Gerudo Town, but _Sky_ , of all people? Was the Master Sword the reason why? Maybe it was. Riju had seen him with it when he’d come to stop Vah Naboris, and the town was full of historians on top of all that. Oh, poor Sky, he was so used to the cool and thin air of the upper atmosphere. Gerudo Town was significantly cooler than its surroundings, with its bright reflective stone and control of water, but even then he couldn’t be feeling very well. At least now that night was falling he'd be a more comfortable temperature.

Time held up a hand. Wild snapped his gaping mouth shut. “Do you know why?” Time asked.

Traysi squinted, deeply skeptical, but when she looked to Wild, he nodded frantically and she gave in. “No idea why,” she murmured, putting her hands on her hips. “But I heard it was something to do with wanting to hand him over to Princess Zelda. Weird stuff, right? I mean, is the Sword such a big deal that they can’t lay down the law themselves? But _don’t_ tell anybody,” Traysi hissed. “I’ve never heard of this before. Usually, they just kick guys out! So it’s going to be a huge scoop in the Rumor Mill, got it?”

“Got it,” Wild said faintly. 

The good thing: They had a goal. Sky was in Gerudo Town. The bad thing: What did he do to get himself arrested? Was it just the Sword that did it? Getting him out could take an eternity, which they really couldn’t afford when every single Link was scattered alone across Hyrule. The _really_ bad thing: Time was almost certainly going to want to come with him to Gerudo Town.

“I need to make sure my food doesn’t burn,” he blurted, darting back to his cooking pot before the other two could get a word in edgewise. 

Time followed after a few moments but didn't speak. It was hard for this to put Wild off too much. Gerudo Stable was warmer and more comfortable than Outskirt Stable by a landslide. Travelers, usually Gerudo women, were almost always passing in and out due to their proximity to civilization. Even as the sun dipped below the horizon, the stable glowed with chatter, warmth, and life. It reminded him a bit of the taverns he’d dipped in and out of in the others’ Hyrules. Nothing could be watching them here.

Finally, he finished cooking, serving the steaks between the two of them. “This is the last of my steak,” Wild said, sighing, just to say it. He had that coyote meat, but something told him Time wouldn’t want to eat that too badly. “I’ll need to stock up in Gerudo Town.”

“Are we going tonight?” Time asked as he began to dig in.

Wild shook his head fiercely. “No,” he said. “Gerudo Town’s temperature is well-regulated, and colder at night, so Sky will be OK. We’ll get him out of there fine. Besides, the Chieftainess Riju goes to bed early, so by the time we make it there she won’t be awake to discuss with us. I don’t want to disturb her.”

“Surely a Chieftainess can afford to lose a few hours of sleep to deal with a serious diplomatic matter,” Time said, his tone light.

“Riju is twelve,” Wild said.

Anger flashed across Time’s features, so briefly Wild wondered if he imagined it. “ _Hm_. That is… terribly young.”

 _She’s only a few years younger than Wind_ , Wild didn’t say. He was there when their rag-tag group, in its earliest stages, had first met Wind. He’d seen the ugly look on Time’s face. It had not exactly been the one he sometimes sent Wild’s way, but was similar in its deep, deep bitterness. Neither of them liked how young Wind was.

“She’s a good kid,” said Wild. “Really mature.”

 _Too_ mature. Something in Time’s face darkened. He understood.

Wild took a bite of his own steak, chewing and swallowing thickly. When the silence became unbearable he cleared his throat. “...Anyway,” he said, “I figure we walk to the Bazaar in the Desert, it’ll take about an hour and a half, and stay the night at the Inn there. It’ll cut down on travel to Gerudo Town tomorrow morning. Then I’ll go in and find our missing member. Easy as that.”

“ _You’ll_ go?”

... _OK, Wild, you can do this. You can convince him to let you go by yourself._

“It’s really difficult to sneak in. And you heard what Traysi said about upping their security. Two people would be way too easily noticeable. They’d spot us in a second and never let either of us in.”

Time leaned forward, propping his chin up on a hand. “Is that so?” When Wild nodded carefully, Time gave him a flat, hard stare. “You said that the Gerudo granted you access as they did me. You wouldn’t have to sneak in, would you?”

...He did say that, didn’t he. They’d had a conversation about Gerudo Town before. Time said he’d outsmarted the Gerudo Tribe so much that they let him join them, and Wild had said that’s what he’d done too.

Ah.

“I… I’m…”

Time leveled him with that perfectly designed disapproving look.

Wild squirmed. “...OK, OK, fine, I lied. The Gerudo didn’t accept me as one of their own. But I’m serious! There really is no way for you to sneak in. No climbing or teleporting or anything, I’ve tried all of that before, OK? You can’t… I… It just has to be me. Only I can sneak in.”

“...Hold on a moment.”

Heat rushed to Wild’s face. _Here we go_. He ducked his head.

Wild could hear the grin in his voice as he slowly said, “Wild, those Gerudo clothes…”

“Wait wait wait,” Wild said, waving his hands and cutting Time off abruptly. “Yes, that was how! Before you say anything, I just… I…”

He floundered for words for a moment that seemed to stretch on forever. Time hadn’t made fun of him that time the Links found his vai clothes, and he really didn’t want him to start now. He wanted Time to respect him, not act like the rest of them did towards those clothes. But how could he say that? How could he say anything at all? This delicate shit—Wild couldn’t speak any of it aloud. When they were sitting over lunch and talking about what they would’ve been if they hadn’t been on this adventure… and earlier than that, when he struggled to say goodbye to Zelda, and the day before when he could hardly form the words to tell her anything he wanted to say to her at all, and…

He raised his hands. “I’m not exactly a man,” he sighed slowly, and gestured to himself. His throat squeezed. His heart pounded hard in his chest. Powerful little tremors shook his fingers.

He felt the air turn serious. He didn’t dare raise his head to see the expression on Time’s face. It took a long moment for Time to say, “...Ah.”

The silence that came after that burrowed deep under his skin.

“Are you a woman, exactly? Have I gotten something wrong?”

Wild blinked down at the sandy ground.

“...I don’t know,” he signed, a little quicker. “I’m still thinking about it.”

He chanced a glance upward. Time was looking at him, frowning, but not angrily. He was waiting, Wild realized. Expectant. He looked back at his feet.

He fumbled a bit with his hands, then signed, “I’m a man. But I’m not just a man. I’m neither, too. I don’t really know how to describe it.” He could definitely describe it better with his hands than he could with his mouth, which didn’t even want to open at the moment, his jaw locked. He signed, “All of the Heroes are just men. So when they pulled out those clothes, I didn’t want to say anything.”

“Wild—” Time cut himself off, sighing. “Look at me.”

Wild’s heart dropped. That was what he used when he scolded Wild for being reckless, when he was especially disappointed in him. But he looked. He didn’t have much of a choice.

Time’s gaze was exceptionally gentle. He murmured, “Not all of the Heroes are just men.”

Wild stared. That… that wasn’t what he was expecting to hear at all. Weren’t they? They all seemed just fine being called men. “What do you mean?” he signed, slow and uncertain.

“Didn’t I tell you I grew up in a forest?” Time asked. Wild nodded slowly. “The people who raised me were not Hylians. They didn’t exactly... understand how Hylians worked. So to everyone, even myself, I was a boy, and a girl, and neither. When I began living among Hylians instead, their binary system of gender didn’t resonate much, either. I primarily called myself a man because it was what most people saw me as. but I didn’t mind thinking of myself as a woman or as neither. It all made sense for me.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Wild said out loud. With his hands, he signed, “Do you still think that way?”

“That I do,” Time said.

“Oh,” Wild said out loud again. He touched his face and found that he was smiling. His heartbeat slowed.

Time smiled back just a little.

He had no idea that Time thought that way—that Time was like him. He had no idea that _anyone_ was like him. It seemed for a long time like his Rest in the Shrine of Resurrection just broke something inside of him, and that was the reason why the idea of only being a man seemed so wrong. Bringing something like him back from the dead wasn’t right. He couldn’t have come back perfect and human. But he’d… never really asked anyone else. Or told anyone else, for that matter, especially not someone like Zelda when he couldn’t remember if he felt this way or not before he died.

He’d just said it because he didn’t want Time to mock him for dressing like a girl like the rest of them did, humiliated, but...

“Thank you,” he whispered, signing along with it.

“Don’t thank me,” Time said shortly. “I’m only sorry I didn’t notice earlier. My clothes aren’t that important to me, but yours… I ought to have stopped the others from playing keep-away when I saw how badly you reacted to it.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry about that.”

“You couldn’t have known… I didn’t say anything,” Wild muttered, wringing the hem of his tunic with one hand. “But… thanks. Again. I’m…glad I told you.”

It was a great weight lifted off of his chest, only truly noticeable in its absence. He was glad he wouldn’t have to duck his head in shame when he put on his vai clothes tomorrow. And where that weight had been there was something else blooming, too: the warmth he’d felt when Twi called him “cub” for the first time and when Hyrule pulled him away from camp to explore and when Four crafted him a new blade with his own hands. He didn’t have a name for that warmth yet, but he thought he saw it in the crooked little smile Time sent his way.

“Thank you,” Time said, “for telling me.” A pause. “But we really ought to eat this steak before it goes cold.”

“...Oh, shit!”

(It kind of had gone cold already. Wild didn’t mind. The fire and Time’s little smile, born from the shared feeling of knowing something that was a secret to everyone, kept him warm.)

When they exited the tight, overwhelming canyon, Wild finally saw the shining lights of Vah Naboris.

It was not moving. Instead, it was sitting down with legs bent as it had first been when it’d let Wild board, this time right behind Gerudo Town. Its long neck was bent, too, its head trembling as gently as a massive beast like it could ever tremble. It was still glowing gently blue, indicating it was free and safe, but its strange posture suggested anything but. He frowned. He'd really need to ask about that in Gerudo Town.

He offered Time a ruby circlet to keep them warm on their walk to the desert. “You know, I get jewelry like this from Gerudo Town,” Wild said warmly. “I could buy you some when I go in.”

“I’m coming in with you,” repeated Time. “Though I do appreciate the offer. I’m more of a fan of earrings, anyway.”

Wild squinted, tapping on his Slate to put on his Rito headgear and his sand boots as they stepped out into the desert. “I still don’t know how you’re going to get in,” he muttered, shivering as a cold night wind whistled past. 

“I have my ways.”

“When don’t you have your ways,” Wild said under his breath.

By the time they reached Kara Kara Bazaar, it became abundantly clear that Traysi was telling the truth about the increased security. There were usually some men lingering around the Bazaar, but now they were just about everywhere, wandering around the oasis’ edge and lounging around the shops. They chattered quietly amongst each other, barely even looking up as Wild and Time approached. Wild ignored them all—though it was _really_ hard to, especially once he caught sight of the boots guy sitting miserably near the butchery—and instead pounced on the opportunity to buy some more ingredients. It drained his wallet a little, but hey! Anything for food. 

Despite the glut of men occupying Kara Kara Bazaar, they were lucky enough to snag two beds in the inn. Wild fell asleep easier than he had in weeks, not counting passing out because of lynel damage, and as he drifted off he found that he was still smiling, almost imperceptibly.

Time woke at six in the morning sharp. Unless someone woke him earlier, he did this every day. Wild would’ve thought it was because of his ranch—Twi talked on and on about being an early bird for that reason—but then one would think he’d rise with the dawn. He didn’t. He woke at six exactly no matter the weather or world. Wild woke a little later and immediately opted to change into his vai outfit, already feeling the desert heat creeping up on him. His veil was tied a little too tight in the back, the rope pressing too hard into his head. When he gave up trying to reach it he asked Time for help, who untied it and tied it looser with surprisingly dexterous hands.

Wild cooked them omelets over the cooking pot and scowled at how few eggs he had left, and made a few chilly elixirs just for safety precautions. A few men shot curious looks his way, but none of them approached with Time there. He tried to meet their gazes each time, just to dare them to come closer. The kind of guy who crept around Gerudo Town was the kind of guy who Wild could never feel guilty about messing with.

Especially not the boots guy. Bozai? He was lingering at the edge of the Bazaar as Wild waited for Time to gather his things from the inn.

“Miss Boots, you break my heart!” Bozai cried. “I saw you eating with that guy—since when have you been taken?”

Wild rolled his eyes. “I’m not taken! When will you learn to _take_ a hint?” he shouted back. It was really no ruder than anything he’d said to Bozai before.

“Only when you stop being so lovely, sweetheart!”

Wild scoffed. “Good-BYE, Bozai. I’m going to Gerudo Town."

“But darling—”

“Are you giving my sister trouble, sir?”

Time’s icy voice came from over his shoulder. Wild was very glad his veil hid the smirk that bloomed across his face when Bozai’s face went white. He spouted the usual excuses and _no no no no no_ and crept away to linger at some other vendor’s shops. Wild loved seeing that creep put in his place (seriously, he was _twice Wild’s age_ , or, twice his _physical_ age, anyway. It was hard being 117) but he also wished a little that he could have done it himself, that he had Time’s stature and confidence and strength.

“...Sister?” Wild asked after a long moment.

“My apologies for that. I assumed because of your clothes he thought you were a woman, I didn’t want to ruin your disguise,” Time said in a low voice. Airily, he added, “And I’d like to think I’m not old enough to pass as your father.”

“Keep dreaming, Old Man.” Wild turned away, feeling heat rise to his face. “You didn’t need to do that. I like messing with creeps like him. But… thanks anyway.”

A strange feeling was welling up in his chest. 

Usually only Twilight made him feel like this. Not secure, but maybe understood. Twi knew when he was having nightmares and woke him, Twi knew when he was going into a memory and stayed with him, Twi knew when he was having a bad day just by his posture. Twi knew and knew and knew. And it was… 

It was humiliating.

Was he so transparent? How had Twilight picked up on everything so quickly? Every time he woke to Wolfie standing over him or came out of a memory to see Twilight blinking at him with his wide, concerned eyes, he felt warm and safe and deeply, utterly mortified. The kind of mortification that sat in his stomach like a stone, ever-present, that made his face go red and his heart pound with shame. It hurt badly to be understood so clearly. Which was stupid. That was stupid. 

Telling Time about feeling like a man and not a man or a woman… he was glad he did it. He hadn’t felt anything in a long time like he did when Time said he thought similarly. But something about even that was like thorns on his skin or like the way the cloth of his vai outfit chafed him. So maybe that would be all he’d say. He didn’t want Time to look at him the same way Twilight did, with love so deep it was always on the cusp of fear.

It was two hours to Gerudo Town, spent again mostly in silence, although this time it was because it was just too difficult to talk. Wild had swapped the ruby circlet he’d given Time for a sapphire one and handed him his heat-reducing Desert Voe headband because the rest of the set wouldn’t fit. With the band, Time had pulled back his hair into a low ponytail, and he looked more youthful than Wild had seen him look anywhere but the ranch.

Even with that, both of them were still feeling the heat, and the sand buffeting them on the winds didn’t help one bit. 

Wild desperately missed his Great Frostblade.

About halfway there Time paused. “I really should put this on now, before any Gerudo see,” he muttered, only barely audible over the howling hot wind. He cleared his throat and said, “Here, Cook, my secret to getting into Gerudo Town,” and proceeded to pull perhaps the dumbest looking mask Wild had ever seen out of his bag.

It was a lumpy, misshapen hunk of gray stone the size of Time’s head. To say it had a face carved into it would be a massive overstatement. There were two little severely uneven dots poked in for eyes, and a massive slash across the bottom of the mask that could maybe pass as a mouth. Wild shrieked with laughter.

“You have no concept of the power that this mask possesses,” Time said, in that way where Wild wasn’t sure if he was totally aware of how dumb what he was saying sounded and was playing it up or if he was dead serious. (This happened a lot with Time.)

“OK, OK, hit me,” Wild gasped through his laughs.

Time put the mask on and wasn’t there at all.

Wild abruptly stopped laughing. “...Oh, come _on_.”

The sand where Time’s feet had been shifted a little bit. Time’s voice came from nowhere. “Nobody ever expects it.”

“Why do you have that?” he demanded. “I want that!”

“I do not want to see what you would get up to with my Stone Mask.” A heavy hand suddenly slugged his shoulder, making him jump. “Let’s keep moving, then. I’ll be right behind you the whole time.”

If walking with Time was straddling the line between the comfort of a group and the comfort of being alone in a way seemingly handpicked to make Wild uneasy, walking with Time with the Stone Mask on was somehow even worse. He was alone but keenly aware that he was _not_ alone. He badgered Time with small talk for a bit just to hear his voice (“Where did you even _find_ something like this?” “Oh, actually a soldier gave it to me…”), but small talk might as well be his fatal flaw, and Time was back to being reticent. It was deeply uncomfortable. It felt like his paranoia about the Shadow turned up to eleven.

The mask may have looked stupid, but it worked. The two guards didn’t even blink at him as he passed them; he got an off-handed “Savaaq!” while they scowled past him, apparently searching for men. For all the talk of heightened security, it was no trouble at all. Somewhere behind him, Time hummed in surprise as they stepped into the town. Gerudo Town was a wellspring of life in the desolate wastelands. Its bright white stone reflected the sun’s rays, and it was filled to the brim with women of all races talking and laughing. Wild waved to the few who recognized him (“Hylian vai!” they’d yell), but kept on a straight path to Riju’s throne room. They’d already left Sky for a night, they shouldn’t hesitate any longer.

After being waved into the room by the guards, Wild approached the throne on light feet. Asking about a prisoner while Time lingered right behind him, invisible, felt really suspicious. If Time was lingering behind him still at all. Maybe he just left. Whatever: Riju would be fine as long as he didn’t act suspicious.

Riju, youthful and hawk-eyed, propped herself up on her throne as Wild approached. “Our hero returns,” she said with practiced boredom. 

Riju was his friend, but if he wanted to speak to her like a friend he’d find her feeding Patricia or in her room with her sand-seal plushies, where she was younger and freer than she was in the throne room. She knew what he was here for.

“Chieftainess Riju…?”

Riju waved a hand. “Go on, speak,” she said.

“I want to ask about the man you detained? Who you, uh, increased security for?”

Buliara scoffed loudly, crossing her arms, as Riju perked up and straightened. “Why are you asking?” the chieftainess asked, her golden eyes giving nothing away.

“W— _I_ think he might be a friend of mine,” Wild said nervously. “I got separated from him a while back uh, around here, and haven’t heard from him since. I heard someone got arrested and thought maybe…”

“Is this a friend who you would willingly hand over the Sword of Legend to?” Riju asked, eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” he said. “Yes, absolutely. He’s, uh, like me.”

“Unbelievable,” Buliara muttered, massaging her temple.

Riju frowned, looking from his face to his Sheikah Slate and back. “Well, we have the Sword. We took it from him when we detained him as we'd assumed that he’d stolen it from you,” she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Usually men encroaching upon Gerudo Town are deserving only of removal from our town, but… the Master Sword is its own set of circumstances, especially because no one had heard from you for a long time before that. We were going to pen a letter to Queen Zelda.” Her eyes shifted behind him to where Time must’ve been standing, invisible, and she frowned thoughtfully. “Well, since you’re here, the Sword ought to be returned to you. Buliara?”

Buliara frowned. “Are you sure about this, Chieftainess?”

“Please,” Riju said.

Buliara hesitated but nodded. She disappeared up one of the sets of stairs and returned a few uncomfortable moments later, holding the sheathed Blade at a distance. She offered the sheath to Wild with a sharp warning look. He thanked her quietly and slung the sheath across his back. He heard someone’s heavy feet shifting—probably Time moving away at the sight of the sword.

He felt more than saw the Sword light up. Riju relaxed into her seat, and Buliara’s suspicious look dialed back a little. As he adjusted to the weight of the Sword on his back, dread began to sink in. Sky must’ve been going crazy without this.

“Can I see him, then? The man you arrested?” asked Wild.

Buliara and Riju exchanged a look.

“Sky!"

Wild’s voice echoed eerily through the little hall that contained the cells.

“Wild! You came!” came Sky’s familiar call from the very end of the hallway, a little hoarse and drier than usual. Wild was unthinkably glad to hear his voice again.

He dashed down the hall to Sky’s cell, only half-thinking about how stupid it probably looked to Buliara. The Chosen Hero’s big brown eyes were narrowed, his face flushed, and a scowl set on his mouth. He was still wearing all his layers, sailcloth and all. Wild could’ve got heatstroke just looking at him, even though it was cooler down here than in the open desert air. His face relaxed into a smile when he saw Wild, then he registered Wild’s outfit and did a double-take. “Wait, _this_ is what those clothes are for?”

Wild ignored it and gave him a shaky thumbs-up. “I’m getting you out of here!”

“I know!” His face turned serious as he leaned in, as close as the bars would let him get. “Listen, I don’t trust these women,” he hissed, so quietly it was nearly inaudible. “They stole Fi!”

“Fi?” asked Riju, appearing by Wild’s side with Buliara. She left a space between them that was, suspiciously, just big enough for Time to stand in.

“The Master Sword. Listen, Sky, this is all a huge misunderstanding! Rij— _the Chieftainess_ ,” he corrects at Buliara’s scolding look, “is a friend of mine. She thought you stole the Sword from me.”

“I tried to tell her about us all.” Sky dry-swallowed and, after a moment of thought, shook his head. “I guess our story isn’t exactly... the most believable.”

Riju put a small hand under her chin, tilting her head. “So it’s true, then, Champion? Heroes across time and space, fighting an unknown threat?”

“It’s true,” Wild said. “All connected to those black-blooded monsters.”

Riju turned her wide golden eyes on him. It was times like these that he truly remembered how young she really was. As mature as she was, something like this must’ve been a little exciting. He couldn’t exactly blame her for not believing Sky when he first said it, either. She looked him up and down one last time, then nodded with certainty.

“Buliara, would you set our, hm, _friend_ here free?”

As Buliara reluctantly unlocked the cell holding Sky, Wild said, “There’s something else I wanted to ask.”

Riju tilted her head in invitation.

“What’s going on with Vah Naboris?”

Riju’s gaze turned flinty but didn’t falter. “Vah Naboris is acting strangely, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. But it isn’t hurting anyone or getting in the way of our trade routes. It’s just… lingering behind town.” She watched as Sky sharply nodded at Buliara and exited the cell, and she sighed. “It let me and some Gerudo guards aboard. There’s no malice or anything in its interior, it’s just behaving oddly. Sometimes it twitches, or walks in circles and cries. Sometimes I think—” She stopped and shook her head as Buliara and Sky approached.

Sky grinned at Wild, easily falling into step on his other side. “Thank Hylia you found me when you did,” he said. “I think I was starting to go insane in there.”

“How have you not gotten a heat stroke and died?” Wild hissed.

Sky laughed and tilted his head, pointing to his ears. He was wearing a pair of strangely shaped spiky red earrings. “Fireshield earrings. Protects me from heat,” he said.

“That is such bullshit! I only have a circlet.”

“Aw, Wild, circlets are nice. Goes with your outfit.”

Wild ignored the little jab. “They always fall off my head when I’m fighting—“

Buliara loudly cleared her throat. They both fell silent immediately. “Champion, please wait to return your sword to your… friend… once you’ve _left_ Gerudo Town. Now come on.”

Buliara hustled them out of Gerudo Town with relatively little fanfare. Wild protested, but Buliara only replied, “Would you want to leave your companion out there alone?” and Wild grumbled under his breath. The women in the guard stared after them in awe, probably eager to get a glimpse of a man in Gerudo Town.

But before Buliara could push him out with Sky, Riju caught Wild by his sleeve. Making sure her guard was still occupied by Sky, she leaned in and murmured, “Link, I think Vah Naboris is sick. It’s nothing inside it or in this desert that’s corrupting it, I know that for sure. But it’s sick.”

“Riju—”  
  


“Naboris isn’t hurting _anybody_ ,” Riju said fiercely. “It’s fighting as hard as it possibly can. But don’t waste time here in the desert, Link. You need to figure out what’s doing this. It can only hold out for so long.”

Then she pushed him lightly, urging him to go.

“So those were the Gerudo…” Sky blocked the sun out of his eyes with a hand, squinting back at the entrance. “They were… um, not like I was expecting, from the way you and Time talk."

Wild pulled his veil off, glad to breathe freely, and asked, “You don’t have them, Sky?”

“No, they must’ve come around sometime after me. It’s really weird seeing all these new kinds of people, you know? As the… founder of Hyrule, I guess, I just never expected it to be…”

“...All this?” Wild gestured at the desert and the Highlands and everything beyond.

“Yeah,” Sky said. “Exactly that. You know, you didn’t have to leave. I could’ve—“ Sky snickered “—could’ve worn an outfit like that too.”

Something yanked on his Sailcloth. Sky spun around, whipping out his sword, but was interrupted by Time’s familiar, quiet laugh. He reappeared behind Sky as he pulled the Stone Mask away from his face. Wild burst into giggles, ducking his head as he laughed.

“Wh—Time!?” Sky squawked. “When did you— _have you been here this whole time_?”

“Yes,” Time said plainly, his face back to its usual ambivalence.

“You—“ Sky whipped around to face Wild. “Did you know about this?” he asked in a whisper.

“Ye-yeah,” Wild choked out between giggles.

“ _Hylia_ ,” Sky swore, but it sounded very fond.

Time pocketed the Stone Mask again as Wild urged them back towards Kara Kara Bazaar. He was more than eager to slide the sheath off of his body and hand it back to Sky, feeling a weight much heavier than the sword leaving him as Sky gladly accepted the ornate sheath. He slid the Master Sword out, and a grin lit up his face as it glowed a soft, holy blue. His smile vanished when it chimed brightly.

“We _all_ got separated?” he said, frowning.

“The Shadow, we... think,” Wild replied, uneasy. “It’s messing with a lot of things this time around.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Vah Naboris, looming over Gerudo Town like its own mountain, its blue veins’ glow moving slow and sluggish. Then his eyes turned to his Sheikah Slate, where those three light arrows sat, waiting to be used.

Sky’s eyes followed his gaze. His expression immediately sharpened, turning hard and serious. After spending five days alone with Time, Wild was _so_ glad that it was Sky they found. Compared to him, Sky was an open book.

“Have you found anyone but me?”

The desert winds howled, nearly swallowing up his faint question in their fury.

“No,” Time said. “No. But we have a plan.”

Sky’s hard eyes didn’t soften, but he allowed himself a grin. “Yeah, it’s you two. I kind of figured you’d come up with something elaborate in a day or so.” He turned his smile on Wild and it went secretive, like they both understood something Time didn’t, but Wild was just a little confused. “...Oh, Time, are you any good at sharpening knives?”

“...A little,” Time said cautiously. “Whatever for?”

Sky fumbled around and pulled out his carving knife. Or what had definitely once been his carving knife. It was so painfully dulled that Four probably would have cried if he saw it, and it was coated in sand and sawdust. Sky rubbed the back of his neck with his other hand, smiling shyly. “I… um…”

“Holy _shit_ ,” Wild said.

Time blinked, apparently lost for words.

“Did you… did you try to get out of jail with that thing?” Wild asked, awed.

Sky went bright red. “Hey, you get locked up by strange women for three days with no weapons and no escape route and see what _you_ would do!”

Wild raised his hands in surrender. “No judgment here.”

“None whatsoever,” agreed Time. “I think your knife might be a little beyond repair without the Smithy’s help, though.”

Sky pocketed the knife with a heavy sigh, running a hand through messy brown locks. Wild bumped Sky’s shoulder with his just to see him smile again. It worked, coaxing a shy grin out of the Chosen Hero.

As they continued their walk back Time caught Wild’s gaze, looked at his vai outfit, and raised his eyebrows. Wild shook his head. It had taken a lot out of him to tell Time alone. He would wait for some other time to tell Sky. But at least when he would, he’d have someone behind him, and at least it was _another time_ instead of _never_. Time nodded, and Wild was in that strange place again, warm and known and humiliatingly exposed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone!! :D sorry that this update is a day late...i didn't have too much time to write during christmas/christmas eve and this turned out to be a pretty big chapter. i hope u all had a happy holiday and have a great new year, since i won't be updating until after that! i'll try my best to maintain a once-a-week schedule, but these first 3 chapters were either nearly finished or partially written beforehand, while the rest i have are mostly just outlines now, so..... we'll see LOL. if it's not once a week it will definitely be once every two weeks.  
> thanx for all your lovely comments & kudos so far!! i cant even describe how motivated theyve made me to work on this fic!! :)  
> talkin abt the chapter itself: ofc nonbinary isn't just a "third gender" to man and woman, but i think wild and time are both pretty limited when it comes to what they actually KNOW about gender and hyrule's gender system seems pretty restrictive, so man/woman/neither is the only real way they have to describe what they're feeling. wild goes by he/they interchangably and time goes by he/she/they interchangably. they will both primarily still use 'he' in this fic!  
> my outline point for that scene was "Wild Experiences the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known" but honestly that could be the entire fic  
> im so glad to have sky here as an actual dude whos capable of expressing his feelings normally. look upon his visage and weep. worry not though!! as we gather The Boys the focus will still remain on these 2 repressed parent/child idiots  
> as always find me on tumblr @ archangelgf


	4. The Mockingbird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His entire body hurt. It was as if he was bruised everywhere, especially along his back, sides, and stomach. As he pushed himself up it felt, well, exactly like one would imagine being hit in the gut by a moblin and falling a few hundred stories would feel. ...Actually, maybe not that bad, because that definitely would’ve killed him, and he wasn’t dead. It was the little things.

**FOUR - THE MOCKINGBIRD**

TABANTHA FRONTIER

There were a lot of things Wild would do differently if he got a chance to go back to the start of all of this. Maybe reroute, be a little nicer to Time, go to Faron sooner. But there was one thing he was certain he would do: avoid Tabantha like the fucking plague.

Wild thought very little of Tabantha on the way there. In fact, he was sure it’d be one of the easiest regions to cross through. Sky was certain to thrive there. It was quiet, one of the smallest regions in Hyrule, and home to the friendly Rito. The worst that could happen, Wild was sure, was that it would be a bit of a slog. 

Wild was an idiot.

The walk was about as easy as expected. They made good time from Gerudo Stable to Outskirt Stable, but even when everything went right Gerudo to Tabantha was a long trek, so he hurried them along as quickly as he could. It made his clawed-up leg unhappy. What can you do? They needed to make the most of their daylight.

Wild wondered if adding a third member back to their little group was taking a weight off Time’s shoulders. He talked a lot less, leaving Sky to jabber on and Wild to interject. As they walked, Sky prodded them about what happened while he was stuck in the desert. “Besides that… Slate stuff,” he said with a nervous smile.

“Nothing much, honestly. We were both on the Great Plateau—“ Wild pointed up at the landmass in the distance, its high walls distinct and strange even from such a distance “—and we had to go see Zelda to find out where you guys were.”

“Oh!” Sky said. He turned to Time, eyes wide. “What was she like, his Zelda? I missed out. With how you talk about her, Wild, I think I really would’ve liked to meet her!”

Wild flushed. Sky probably didn’t mean that Wild talked about Zelda in a romantic way, but with how hopelessly lovey dovey he and his Zelda were, just about anything he could’ve said would’ve made Wild uncomfortable. 

Time chuckled shortly and shook his head. “You would’ve liked her. I certainly did. She was… excitable. Curious, extremely curious, especially about you. She demanded we come back after we all meet up so she could talk to all of us about our time periods.”

Sky laughed, delighted, as he always was, to learn about the Royal Family. “Excitable, huh?”

“In a good way,” Time said. “She was very smart, but perhaps not so wise yet.”

Wild bristled.

“Reminds me of someone else we know,” Sky teased.

“Hey!” Wild yelped.

“...Very young,” Time said, apparently ignoring this. “But there were the makings of a great leader.”

Sky grinned at them both. “I’m sure there was,” he agreed.

Wild tried hard to shake off his anger on her behalf. This wasn’t new, and he didn’t even disagree, and Impa would probably have said the same thing. It just wasn’t her fault that she had a lot to learn—she’d been trapped with Ganon for a hundred years, there wasn’t much processing one could do in a situation like that.

“She’s doing her best with what she has,” Wild said stiffly. He was sure Time knew. To Time, he’d learned, critique and kindness were two sides of the same coin. That didn’t make it any easier to bear. Or maybe Wild was just oversensitive.

Sky smiled kindly. “I’m sure she’s doing very well for herself, as a descendant of the Goddess. I couldn’t even imagine being in her situation. Or yours.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Time’s expression flattened out, though not before he could hide a curl of his lip. Wild’s fist clenched as if of its own volition as he thought of the many nights Zelda spent praying in vain, and Sky winced a little as he remembered who, exactly, he was talking to. He didn’t blame Sky. He hadn’t meant it rudely, it was just… it didn’t matter.

They had around another six hours until Tabantha, which Wild desperately didn’t want to spend in awkwardness, so he said, “We’re all doing the best we can,” but it came out too stiff and that tense look on Time’s face didn’t fade.

  
  


The air stayed uncomfortable as they trekked further north. Wild was careful to avoid any places that would trigger his memories, dodging the Sanidin Park Ruins by taking them through a field of flowers. He let his fingers brush their soft blue petals, and for a moment he was back on his first journey again, wide-eyed and naive. 

But he couldn’t have been. The eerie stillness that lingered on Hyrule Field and the Great Plateau seemed to be everywhere now. Out here in the outskirts and ridgelands, there should be life everywhere. Birdsong, at the very least. Wild knew that this plain was usually a hotspot for groups of horses, but there was nothing to be seen. He peered up at Satori Mountain as they passed, inactive, dull. He could see birds hopping around in their trees, at least, but it was so unusual for them to be so quiet. Neither of the other two said anything. Time was looking straight ahead, focused, but Sky, too, was staring at the silent birds.

  
  


Tabantha Bridge Stable was one of Wild’s favorites. It seemed like he always ended up there at dusk or dawn, and it was a beautiful sight in the night, warm and welcoming. Wild nearly abandoned his companions at the sight of Yammo, a merchant who sold foodstuffs, and bought just about her entire stock of wheat, rice, butter, and eggs (“I’ve gotta save _some_ for everyone else, bud,” she said). They took this in stride and sat around the cooking pot. Sky was flexing his toes anxiously as Wild finally approached.

He was eager to get down to business. The better they made it to where their missing Link was, the better. “OK, OK, so… here’s the thing. We can stop here for the night, right, but it’s kind of early. It’s about… four hours to Rito Village, see, we’re really close. So I say we keep walking. We get to Rito Village at about ten o’clock that way, and they have the _softest_ beds in Rito Village, Sky, you wouldn’t believe—but sunset is in a few hours, so we’d be walking after dark if we did.”

Sky’s eyes glimmered, looking especially tempted, but he frowned. “I’m not so sure walking after dark is the smartest idea right about now…” He rolled his ankles, looking down at them as if he could see how tired they were through his boots.

Wild got it, but daylight wasn’t even gone yet, and they ought to make the most of what they had instead of resting early. “There’s a Fairy Fountain along the way. If we get into any fights, we should be OK.”

“Though we’ve not seen much in the way of fights so far,” Time muttered. “Wild, that’s not usual here, is it?”

“Not at all. You saw those gold bokoblins.”

Sky’s worried gaze only turned confused. “But isn’t this the Shadow’s doing? Why would there be fewer monsters?” he asked. “You’d think it’d want more of them.”

Time crossed his arms and leaned back, the fire casting dark, stretching shadows over his form in the dying sunlight. “Quality over quantity,” he suggested. “Those gold bokoblins were fiercer than any bokoblins I’ve ever faced. They healed themselves. Creating, or even enhancing, monsters like that must take an awful lot of energy.”

Wild started chopping vegetables to cook in the Cooking Pot to serve with the steak he’d bought from Kara Kara Bazaar. Barely sparing him a glance, Sky leaned forward, troubled. “Didn’t you say you fought them on the way to find me? Maybe we haven’t run into anything because we aren’t close to where another Link is yet.”

Time hummed. “That’s a good point,” he conceded.

“If you really want to, we can stay here,” Wild said. “But I don’t want to linger here and waste a good few hours of daylight for nothing over what-ifs.”

It sounded astonishingly abrasive once the words actually left his mouth, much worse than in his head. He blushed, ducking his head and focusing on chopping vegetables again, a comfortable, familiar rhythm. Sky was quiet, and Wild didn’t want to raise his head to see exactly where he was looking.

Time’s voice came after a long-lingering pause. “If the Cook is that confident, I don’t see why we shouldn’t keep moving. It’s his Hyrule. I have no reason to doubt him.”

He used that refrain an awful lot, didn’t he?

“You’re right,” Sky said. “I’m just… worried, with so few of us, you know? If we get hurt, it’s a lot more serious. But you’re right. I’m sorry, Wild, I do trust you.”

What was he apologizing for? Hylia, Wild hoped it went well because if it didn’t, it was all on him. At least it wasn’t crazy. Right? Pushing a few more hours wasn’t crazy? Most of his plans weren’t, or so he thought, anyway. They could be out-of-the-box, sure, but they all made perfect sense in his head. Maybe it was just his head that was wrong if everything that made so much sense in there made none at all when he actually let it out.

“No, it’s fine,” he said hastily. “I just don’t want to leave one of us out there all alone any longer than we have to, you know? The closer we get, the better.”

This, at least, the three of them could easily agree on.

  
  


One of Wild’s favorite little secrets was the road to the Fairy Fountain. It was a split in the mountainside along the road to Rito Village, not hidden or tucked away, just hard to notice amidst the rough, jagged rock. Most travelers never saw it because they never slowed down enough to. Wild himself had passed right over it the first few times he’d come through this way. It was a tight squeeze, somehow even more claustrophobic than the canyons of Gerudo. Rock pressed in on their sides and tightly above, more like a tunnel than a split in the mountainside. But it was all worth it for the beautiful sight of the Fairy Fountain. 

Sky and Time had never seen one in his world before. Remembering how it felt to see the one in Kakariko for the first time, he knew it was a sight to behold: the beautiful fountain itself, petals glowing orange and decorated in gold, the mushroom stalks, and the flowers blooming in the clearing created an air of perfect peace. Sky gasped aloud. Even Time, so stoic, murmured, “Beautiful.”

But Wild frowned. He felt no peace washing over him. There should be dozens of fairies fluttering around this fountain, as there had been since he’d woken Kaysa up, but there were only two at most. Leaving his companions behind, he quickly approached the base of the flower, stood before the fountain, and called out to the Great Fairy.

Kaysa burst from the fountain with a splash and a shrieking, delighted laugh. Her dark skin glowed in the sun, contrasted by her bright purple hair as she lounged back on the fountain’s edge. A bit of relief ran through him. At least _she_ seemed normal. “Welcome back, Hero,” she said. Her eyes widened. “And you brought _friends_! Handsome friends! What a pleasant surprise!” She leaned forward, beaming. 

Wild glanced behind him. Sky looked stunned, his jaw hanging open. Time, on the other hand, looked relaxed and peaceful. Wild stifled a laugh. “This is the Great Fairy Kaysa,” he said.

“Great Fairy Kaysa,” Time repeated. He inclined his head in a bow. “It’s an honor to meet you. Thank you for providing us sanctuary.”

Kaysa giggled. “Link, I _like_ this one. Why don’t you have manners like that?” She ignored Wild’s protests, her expression sobering. “Though, as I’m sure you can tell, it isn’t too much of a sanctuary at the moment.”

“What happened?” Wild asked. “All the fairies…”

“Nothing happened, that’s what is strange. My fountain remains untouched... but there’s a darkness growing. My children are appearing less and less. I worry my power is waning,” she murmured (as much as a Great Fairy could murmur), frowning.

“Do you really think the Shadow could do something like that?” Sky breathed. “I couldn’t imagine it touching a place like this. It’s so… peaceful.”

“Even the homes of fairies aren’t immune to evil,” Time said gravely. “But they’re usually the last to fall.”

Kaysa folded her arms on the edge of her fountain and rested her chin on them. “You are quite courageous, chasing after such strange darkness. Just what I expected for friends of our hero here,” she said slyly. Wild blushed. “I have very few ways to assist you at the moment… although... “ She raised her head and snapped her fingers. The two fairies that remained at the fountain fluttered over to meet her. “Here. Please take my children with you. I am sure you will need all the protection you can get.”

The fairies, in contrast to their feral, flighty usual nature, settled without complaint on Wild’s Slate and let him store them.

They lingered at the Fairy Fountain for a few more minutes, enjoying the way the respite and warmth it provided, but Wild wanted them to move on as quickly as they could. The sun had almost completely vanished behind the horizon and it was still a few more hours until Rito Village. Right now, they didn’t have the luxury of not rushing.

“Just a moment, please, with the Great Fairy?” Time asked. “Then I’ll be right behind you.”

Wild agreed, trying not to sound hesitant. Time loved fairies, though Wild had no clue why. They swarmed to him like flies. Apparently, all the sugar water on the Ranch was an attempt to draw them in. Wild had kind of given up on knowing too much about Time, as they all had, let alone knowing something about why he liked fairies. Whatever made him happy, he guessed.

He let Sky go first through the passageway back down. When he glanced behind him, Kaysa was leaning forward, gently frowning as Time spoke softly to her. It was almost sympathetic. She kissed the top of her finger and softly tapped his forehead. He smiled, wide and genuine, in a way that he had never let any of them see.

WIld looked away. It was private. He had no reason to know, so he wouldn’t ask. 

  
  


Vah Medoh, as it came into view, unsettled him. Its wings trembled in a way Wild did not think its wings should have been able to, its head ducked down like a bird preening. Riju had said she knew whatever was messing with the Divine Beasts wasn’t lingering in the desert… but if that was true, Wild had no idea where it _could_ be. He’d been in the Castle, and there was nothing strange there. Like Vah Naboris, its lights were a familiar, kind blue, but it was clearly strained.

If Revali were here, he wouldn’t put up with that shit. He poorly muffled a laugh at the thought. Sky sent him a strange look, but Time only looked amused when he glanced his way.

  
  


By the time they made it to Rito Village, the sun had been down for hours, and a cold chill was coming down from the mountains. Wild shivered. 

He was sure they’d make it to the inn at Rito Village uninterrupted considering most people would certainly be in bed by now. The heavy, strong beat of wings and a sleek white form swooping down to land in front of them proved him suddenly wrong.

“Look who’s finally decided to show his face.” Teba’s ice-cold tone was unwelcome, but unsurprising. He’d always been quick to anger. 

Wild had actually been expecting this: Teba, like everyone else, probably assumed Wild fled after defeating Calamity Ganon and that hadn’t been bothering with the black-blooded monsters. 

After Wild had finished helping Zelda and left the Castle, he didn’t pass through civilization or speak to anyone. He made quite sure nobody’d know where he went, though he hated himself for it at the time, and it wasn’t exactly any easier to justify now. It meant freedom. Selfishly, that was all he wanted. It meant that for a month or so it was him and the wilderness, as it’d been when he’d woken, free of expectation and conversation. He had only noticed one or two monsters with the strange black blood, and then, suddenly, it was him and nine other himselves. 

Wild didn’t dignify the Rito warrior with much of a response, nodding less out of respect and more to hide the grin at the defensive stances he spotted Time and Sky taking out of the corner of his eye.

“Were you on patrol just now, Teba?” he asked.

Teba’s narrowed eyes didn’t soften. “I was,” he said coolly. “I don’t know what the hell you think you’re doing, disappearing like that with monsters like these around. No one’s seen you in _months_ except, apparently, a few travellers.” His tone practically oozed skepticism. Wild shook his head, but Teba kept talking. “Usually I’m not exactly content to shift blame onto some kid, but it seems you _are_. Seriously, sending some twelve-year-old on a wild goose chase around Hyrule for you?”

Wild’s mouth dropped open. “What the hell are you talking about?” 

Time stepped up next to him, crossing his arms. “I’d suggest you watch your tone,” he told Teba. “‘Some twelve-year-old’?”

Teba bristled. The challenge to authority seemed very unwanted. “Some kid passed through here yesterday,” he said. “Looking for _you_ , Link.”

Before he could answer, Time interjected, “Describe him.”

Teba’s eyes darted between Time and Wild skeptically. Reluctant, he said, “... Looked an awful lot like Link. Blue clothes, yellow hair, big eyes. Called himself _Wind_. Kid acted like he’d never seen a Rito in his life.” 

So it was Wind, then. At least he went into town to ask for information, although like with Sky, the climate made Wild uneasy. Wind was used to sunny weather and tropical temperatures like down in Faron… his home island was one of the most comfortable places Wild had ever been, next to Lurelin. Say, didn’t Wind have Rito in his time? Maybe they just looked a lot different. But he was looking for them. That was the important thing.

Wait. Wind had the Sheikah necklace… thing. _Why hadn’t he called?_ Or, worse, had he tried and not gotten through? Had he lost it? Had Wild missed something?

He let the pause go on for too long. “We got separated by monsters, he’s not on a _goose chase_ for me,” he hissed, which wasn’t exactly a lie. “We’ve been looking for him for days.”

Teba’s gaze didn’t turn the least bit sympathetic. “You ought to keep a better handle on who you’re travelling with, then, Link. He was damn near dying of the cold up here. And you ought to try not vanishing on us when gold monsters are running rampant, either.”

Time shifted to stand in front of Wild, but it was unnecessary. In a rush of white, Teba swept up into the skies and was gone.

“That… didn’t go well,” Wild said.

“No kidding,” Sky said faintly behind him. “Is he usually like that?”

“No matter,” Time dismissed, but he stared after Teba’s shrinking form with a hard look. “We know Wind is around here. That’s all that’s important.”

“Do we go looking for him?” Sky asked. 

Both heads turned to Wild. He was chilly. A bead of sweat ran down his temple.

“No, I think, there’s no point,” said Wild, but he knew he couldn’t hide his uncertainty. “It’s so cold up here already, and it only gets worse late at night, and we’d barely be able to see a thing. Teba… didn’t even say what direction he went. In the morning we can ask if anyone knows where he’s gone.”

Sky’s open-book expressions betrayed him again as he looked away, grimacing. But this time he said nothing. He nodded. 

The feeling in Wild’s gut that he was wrong squirmed like a thing alive.

  
  


The rest of Rito Village, what little of it was awake at this time of night, was much more welcoming. Most of the guards bid him a warm hello, and the innkeeper was just glad for more customers. When they asked about Wind, she only shook her head. “I saw the Hylian boy, but he didn’t stay here for the night. Either he stayed with someone else or he left early.” Neither of those inspired confidence, but Sky looked dead on his feet. Time’s expression was sturdy and calm, as always, but he couldn’t have been faring much better, because even Wild’s calves were starting to ache a little. They needed a good rest. Wild was happy to pay extra for the Rito-down bed, especially when it meant watching Sky gasp with delight and just about melt into the mattress. He was out in seconds.

The other two of them, not so. It didn’t really matter. A comfortable silence had settled over the inn, as they were currently its only occupants, and the chilly air only made the soft, cozy Rito bed more inviting.

His back didn’t like it much, though. Just like at the castle. Too soft. Hylia, he was turning into Time. He was fine at the castle… eventually… once he tossed and turned enough. If he could just fall asleep, he’d love it, just like he had every time he’d come here before. If he could just fall asleep. If he could just... 

Was he getting so bad that he couldn’t even fall asleep in a nice bed anymore?

“Who was that at the village entrance?” Time asked abruptly from the bed next to him. “He spoke like he knew you.” 

There were barbs in that sentence, but Wild wasn’t exactly sure where. He mourned the silence for a moment. Then he pushed the soft blanket off and stared at his feet. “That was Teba,” he said. “Helped me fight the Divine Beast. He’s a little… uh… hot-headed. I bet it was worse because he thought we were, I don’t know, not properly taking care of Wind. Wind can take care of himself, Teba just has kids. He gets like that.”

“Seemed a little more than hot-headed to me,” Time said. “Even for a father.”

But Teba had had a point. Wild shouldn’t have left the castle in the first place. That alone time was nothing but a waste… He was a hero. People like him—like _them_ —didn’t get breaks. He pulled the blanket back over his feet to warm them up, but then felt a little trapped. Why did everything have to be an inconvenience with him? “Teba’s… OK,” he said. “But he’s used to being in control. He’s a leader. People look up to him. And I don’t… take orders well.”

“Who would’ve known,” Time said innocently.

“Very funny,” sniffed Wild. He dug his fingers into the soft bedding. Suffocating bedding. That was the word. “Teba is suffocating. But I can’t really judge.”

“No?”

“No,” he said quietly. “I could never do what he does. What you do, I guess.”

The bed next to him groaned a little, a telltale sound of Time shifting around. Wild finally wrenched his gaze away from the ceiling to look at him. In this safe type of darkness, swaddled in blankets and missing his armor (except for, oddly, his gauntlets) Time was almost youthful, if not for the expression. Hard-earned weariness never left his stern features. “Leadership?” he asked, skeptical. “I’m not so sure I’d be so quick to compare myself to Teba. I haven’t pulled together a village. The most I’ve handled is you boys.”

“Might as well be a village,” Wild muttered, receiving a little laugh that made him feel rather accomplished. He laid back down and frowned, linking his hands and placing them behind his head. “I guess I just… don’t know how you could do it. I mean, worry about other people all the time, every time you make a decision.”

Time blinked slowly. “I suppose,” he mused, “it comes naturally. I’m never not concerned about some person or another.”

“...Really?”

“You sound surprised.”

“I mean—”

“I’m just teasing.” Time looked back up to the ceiling. “I know I don’t seem much like the type. Truth is, I was quite the people-pleaser when I was a child.”

“You?” Wild asked, incredulous.

“Indeed. I was the kind of child to break my back to make people happy. I grew out of it quickly. After all, it’s not a very healthy way to live. But, I suppose, I never lost my eye for people.” A pause. “Pun not intended.”

Wild groaned. On Wild’s other side, Sky’s snores stuttered, and they both quieted down to make sure he didn’t wake. They probably didn’t have to worry. Sky could sleep through the apocalypse (and Wild would know.) His eyelids felt heavier.

“It’s not natural to me at all,” Wild finally said. It sounded very petulant, but he looked back at Time’s face and saw no judgement reflected there. Perhaps this, too, was part of his job as a leader. Something in Wild didn’t like that idea so much. “I know my own limits. That was all I needed out there. If I di— _almost_ died,” he hastily corrected, “I could always get back up. Not so easy now with you. … With everyone.”

Time narrowed his eye, but did not comment on Wild’s slipup. He only asked, “Is that why you look up to Teba, then? Because he can lead?”

“I don’t look _up_ to him,” Wild mumbled. “Or… aspire to be him. He’s even dumber than me. Tried to fight a Divine Beast with no legendary sword… and a kid at home.” He yawned, feeling tears spring to his eyes with it. “I _respect_ him. There’s… a difference.”

Distantly he realized he’d slowly been relaxing back into the bed as he spoke with Time. Through his drowsiness he wasn’t sure that he looked up to anyone, not like Twilight looked up to Time or Wind did to Warriors. ...Maybe Link had, though. His father was a captain of the guard, right? He probably looked up to him.

“Hah. I suppose there is,” Time said.

They let the silence sit.

Even the too-soft bed was welcoming enough now. As Wild let sleep draw him under, the other Rito bed squeaked. Soft footsteps, muffled by the wooden flooring, approached his bedside, and he felt the blanket being pulled up over his shoulders.

  
  


Familiar music greeted them when they woke. The faint but jaunty sound of Kass’ accordion drifted in from above. If Wild weren’t on such a soft bed he would’ve jumped with joy at the sound of it like hearing Kass in the wild had conditioned him to do. Back then it meant seeing another person after days and days of wandering without seeing anybody… not like that got lonely. Wild didn’t get lonely. He just liked seeing people. Now, though, he turned and buried his face in the pillows.

His back hurt. Man, he really felt like Time.

Speaking of Time, was that an ocarina he heard, too? 

He groaned and rolled over. 

No… he probably wasn’t going to get back to sleep, even though the sky was only just starting to lighten. 

He pushed off the blanket and blinked the blurriness out of his eyes. Usually he’d be alert as soon as he woke up, but this bed made him sleepier than usual… He stumbled to his feet and yawned, moving to Sky’s bedside. “Wake up,” he muttered, reaching down and lightly shaking Sky’s shoulder. Sky snored louder. “Ughhh, wake _up_ , Sky.” He shook him harder. Sky grumbled, eyelids fluttering, and snuggled deeper into his pillows. Wild hissed and shook him rapidly. “Come on, _breakfast_.”

Sky’s eyes slowly opened. “Breakfast?”

Of course that’s what got him. “I’m gonna make omelets,” Wild hissed.

Sky closed his eyes again and yawned. “Mmhh… not yet… come wake me up when y’r done.”

“You are so…”

  
  


“Omelets? A bit macabre, I’d say.”

Time was trying to be light, but something about his voice sounded dry and heavy.

Wild poked at his omelet. “Don’t make it weird.” 

“Kass told me where the cooking pot was. I was sure I’d find you here.” When Wild shot a glance over his shoulder, Time was leaning against the doorway, his face unreadable. “Did you hear us playing?”

Wild huffed. “Yeah, woke me up,” he grumbled. To be fair, he’d wake up at a twig snapping. “Sounded nice, though. He used to play that song all the time when he was travelling.”

“He knows a great many songs,” Time said. Something was very strange in the way he said it. “Quite the musician. And he seems to know you rather well, too.”

Wild clicked his tongue. “We’re friends, I guess. It was destiny.” He forced down a scowl. It stung.

“Destiny?”

“His mentor was a Sheikah. A prophet,” he explained. “The court poet before I, ah, died. He wrote songs for me. But me now, not me then. Kass is just the messenger, I think.”

Time’s lips twisted. That look on his face—distaste?—sharpened into something fierce.

“It’s kind of weird,” Wild said, shifting uncomfortably. “He had to leave his wife and kids behind to meet me, you know? To travel. I don’t know if you saw them. I always felt like… he shouldn’t be involved. Should’ve stayed with them."

“It’s never that easy,” Time said tightly.

Kass had an awful lot of songs. Anything could’ve put Time in one of these moods. Although… Time, Malon, and Twi were always singing that song for horses Kass used to play at the stables. That was probably it, wasn’t it? He probably wasn’t ready for anybody but Twi to know that song. It was a sweet song, bright and rhythmic, calling to mind the warmth of a hearth. It was a miracle anybody from their time knew it at all, with the tens of thousands of years between Wild and the hero before him. But why would the song make Time stare at Wild like that? A little selfishly, he thought it was a bit too early in the morning for something like this. He was still half-asleep.

So he just said, “Food’s almost done. Can you wake Sky up?”

  
  


After breakfast came the most important part: asking around about Wind. Teba would be of no help, but while he was important to the village, his quick temper and rash disposition were well-known. Hopefully that meant the Rito wouldn’t be too upset to talk to him.

Sky and Time asked around on some of the lower floors while Wild risked going up to Teba’s house to see if his wife, Saki, was there. As expected, she was there, and her husband and son were gone. 

“Are they training at the flight range again, Ms. Saki?” Wild asked.

“Good morning, champion descendant,” she said, just a little dryly. Wild smiled awkwardly. “And they are. As always.”

Teba criticizing him for losing Wind and then hypocritically turning around and training his son at the Flight Range all day rubbed Wild the wrong way. He didn’t want to aggravate Saki anymore, though, so he asked, “Do you know where my friend Wind went? Teba mentioned he saw him.”

“Oh, that poor thing? Yes, he was looking for you… He left sometime before dawn yesterday, since he wasn’t here when we woke up,” she said. “We Rito have poor night vision. I don’t know if anyone saw him go.”

… He forgot about the bad night vision. _Well_! He couldn’t give up hope just because of one bad answer.

  
  


Every conversation with the other Rito was just as bad. 

None of the children had seen him, all asleep; Kass didn’t see him, high up on Revali’s landing, and neither did his wife Amali; Harth didn’t see him, Nekk and Misa and Guy all didn’t see him. The vain hope Wild desperately held onto that the other two had maybe had better luck slipped through his fingers when the three Heroes reconvened and none of them had found anything.

“I admit I had hoped the population centers would be more help than this,” said Time, which was as close to admitting defeat as he ever got, and _that_ made Wild’s heart sink.

“Wind is smart,” Sky said. “You said everywhere around here is snowy and dangerous, right? He’s not stupid. I don’t think he’d go charging into the freezing cold for no reason.”

“If I were Wind,” muttered Wild, “what would I do…”

They were silent for a painful moment.

“I’d go to the next nearest people, I think,” Sky suggested. “Stable, city, camp, doesn’t really matter.”

“I’d search for any signs of us?” Wild asked weakly. “Campfires? He’d know how to find people from a distance, right? He talks about all those islands in his Hyrule, and getting shipwrecked, so a kid like him would learn, right?”

He said right twice… This is why he was better in sign.

Sky sighed.

Another pause.

“...If it were me,” Time said, “I would look for the monsters.”

  
  


_That_ got them somewhere.

“That canyon,” Mazli, a brown Rito stationed near the entrance, said. “The one the Hylians and Sheikah have been investigating. I guess so much new activity, or so many people, drew monsters. They set up there a while ago. Pushed the scientists out.”

Why didn’t Zelda mention that?

Maybe she didn’t want to put it on him, with the corrupted Slate and their missing friends. But she ought to have put it on him. He was her knight. It was his _job_. He was still strong enough to do his job.

Wasn’t he?

He glanced at Time, radiant in his armor, and at Sky, standing tall and confident. The claw wounds in his leg throbbed furiously.

Hylia, he wished Wind had just called.

  
  


“How’s it looking?” shouted Sky.

“Gimme a minute!” Wild swayed a little on top of the abandoned lizalfos camp as he swiped at his Slate with force. “The scope. The _scope_ ,” he muttered. 

“Don’t break it,” Sky called.

“It’s _10,000_ years old, Sky, it’s had worse than me hitting it a few times!”

“Of course,” said Time. “Such as when you dropped it in that lake… or down that cliff… or out of that tree you were climbing and it hit Twilight on the head…”

“Laugh it up!”

Sky and Time did, indeed, laugh it up. All of them very carefully did not bring up the Malice.

“Aha!” Wild shouted. The Slate finally obeyed him, switching to a scope. The old but towering wooden structure that had once been home to a lounge of lizalfos was the highest place Wild could climb in such a short amount of time, but without lizalfos to keep it up it was growing frail, and the wood creaked threateningly under his feet. Sky and Time lingered at its base. Wild closed one eye and stared at the Slate’s screen. “ _Shit_ ,” he said.

“I have a feeling we’re not going to like this,” muttered Sky, barely audible.

Mazli wasn’t kidding about there being a lot. It seemed to be where any lizalfos who would’ve lived in this camp went to, as well as a significant amount of bokoblins and moblins. Not grouped together, though, that was the weird part—some stayed in a camp on the cliff side, but many lingered along the platforms left behind by the excavation, which descended down and down into the abyss where the Forgotten Temple lay. Even with the scope, he couldn’t see that far down. This unusual enemy behavior had to be the Shadow’s fault. But it couldn’t be _just_ that, couldn’t be without reason. Nothing in the wild behaved without reason, not even monsters. So why’d they chase out the excavation? Why’d they linger on the platforms that led down into the deep? Was it something to do with… whatever was trying to get at the Divine Beasts?

“Come up here! Better than me explaining.”

Upon looking through the Slate, Sky was similarly baffled. “That’s weird. Compared to what we’ve been seeing,” he agreed quietly, passing the Slate to Time.

“Right. I don’t understand… what could be the reason for so many to be here after we saw almost nothing on the way?”

“Less golden ones, though,” Time said, ever-analytical. “It seems we were right. That must take more energy.”

“That’s good, at least,” Wild said, hollow.

“Do you think… there’s something the Shadow wants to protect down there?” Sky asked hesitantly.

The realization did not settle on them all at once. It was Time who clearly thought of it first, lowering the Slate with a pale face and a wide eye. Sky, seeing his horrified features, breathed, “You don’t think…”

Wild put together the dots last, too preoccupied to feel insecure about it. “ _Wind_?”

“Why else would there be so many monsters swarming there?” Time asked. “It must be security. If they’re keeping a Hero of Courage down there, in that Temple…”

“ _No_ ,” Sky said.

“Maybe there’s a monster down there,” Wild said. “Something strong. Something that’s trying to get at the Divine Beast…”

“Maybe,” Sky said.

“It could be,” Time agreed, but Wild knew he didn’t believe him.

If Wind were down there… it made more sense with each passing second. Dread settled low in Wild’s belly, its acids stinging his throat.

There it was again. Bile.

  
  


The seriousness of the situation combined with their lack of manpower called for a plan.

Wild wasn’t the plan kind of Hero, and everyone knew that, but he wasn’t incapable of following them. He’d do just about anything if it meant they’d get their missing member back OK. Especially if it were Wind—it didn’t matter that he could take care of himself, he was a _kid_ , goddammit, his Hyrule was dangerous enough for adults. Still, it was impossible to miss the glances Sky and Time sent his way as they pored over the map on the Slate; distrustful, at the very best. It hurt a little after Time had spent this past couple of days’ journey encouraging Sky to listen to Wild. 

Maybe that was why he wanted him to lead? Because he was better at it than following? 

Scratch _a little_ . It _really_ stung.

They were at a huge disadvantage. The excavation, like the ones in Gerudo, had left behind little more than thin wood platforms to walk on along the cliffside. On one hand, that meant less monsters at once; on the other, it meant a light breeze would be enough for any of them to fall off. On top of that, they had to leave the platforms relatively intact so they could make it back up once they got down there and got Wind. “So no bomb arrows,” Sky said, in an attempt to be lighthearted that only made Wild feel like he was being condescended to. 

Time saw his fake smile and frowned. “That camp has to go,” he said. “It may just be best to storm it. If we raise enough hell, some of the ones on the platforms might come up to investigate.”

It made sense. They couldn’t afford to wait until nighttime, having already left Wind down there for long enough, meaning stealth was out. Might as well use that to their advantage. “No fighting on platforms then,” Wild mused. He was not the one who usually contributed to their fight plans, and every word he said seemed to his own ears like a child desperately trying to be taken seriously. Not even that. At least Purah was confident when she spoke.

Sky hummed. “Solid ground does sound very good,” he said, a rare sentiment from him.

“I could try to teleport,” Wild tentatively suggested, “um, into the Forgotten Temple. See what’s going on down there. There’s a Shrine in the back.”

“And if you get caught? We can’t afford to have two of us captured.”

Wild sometimes really hated when Time was right.

In the end, the plan was simple: storm the camp. Destroy it in the loudest, most obnoxious manner possible. Draw the attention of the monsters along the cliffside. Fight on solid ground for as long as they could, and when they inevitably moved to the platforms, fight almost solely at range.

“So,” Wild said, “bomb arrows on the camp?”

Sky opened his mouth. Time beat him to it. “Exactly,” he said, grinning just a little.

Sometimes Wild hated leaning into the ‘crazy’ archetype the rest of the group pinned him with… but he really did love bomb arrows. He beamed, showing his teeth.

  
  


With how open the area around the monster camp was, the three Heroes got spotted easily. It didn’t matter. The bomb arrow landed perfectly in the center of the camp. It exploded in a brilliant firestorm, sending the monsters scrambling. Some of the bokoblins too close to the arrow were thrown over the cliff, tumbling into the massive canyon. Shrieks rose up from below—good, they’d gotten their attention. The remaining monsters, black bokoblins, silver moblins, and black lizalfos, some with their arms and legs blown off, stumbled to their feet.

“Wait, wait,” Wild said. “One more.” He drew his arm back, closed one eye, and fired at the moblins closest to the cliff. The next explosion sent a silver moblin falling to its doom. He couldn’t hide his grin.

Time unsheathed his sword. “Avoid the cliff side for as long as possible,” he instructed. “Draw them out into the fields. Don’t get cocky.” Already the bokoblins are charging, just as they’d hoped. “Remember: this is for Wind. Make this as quick as you can. Save arrows for when we descend.”

“Got it,” Wild and Sky chorused.

The lizalfos reached them first. They were quick. Sky was quicker. He easily deflected one’s spear and plunged the Master Sword into its chest. Time took position at his back, driving the rest of the lizalfos away from Sky with his heavy, powerful swings. Sky pulled his shining blade out of the lizalfos’ chest and, in little more than a glint of holy light, decapitated it. He moved with speed and grace Wild could barely comprehend.

Unconsciously, Wild and Time fell into a rhythm. Whichever lizalfos didn’t get sliced by Time’s Biggoron Sword got caught from behind by Wild’s Royal Guard Sword. The blade was on its last legs. It was OK, though. As the bokoblins approached, Wild laughed and flung the Royal Guard Sword at the nearest one’s face. The blade shattered into an array of blue light, killing the bokoblin on impact and splattering black blood across the ground.

...Light black blood. Weird. Wild picked a Lizal Tri-Boomerang off the ground and swung it at the next bokoblin.

Sky’s whirling, flashing blade picked off the last couple lizalfos like he’d been doing it his whole life. But he struggled with the bokoblins, surprised by their chaotic, animalistic nature. Occupied with his own bokoblins, Wild struggled to keep an eye on him, but saw him get thrown back, gasping. Time was there to support him. The silver moblins, groaning and injured, finally approached. Behind them, even more monsters emerged from the platforms.

Ducking away from the bokoblin’s wild swings, Wild thought that this seemed almost too easy. Obviously it wouldn’t be as difficult to fight black bokoblins as gold ones, but these didn’t even seem as strong as an infected black bokoblin ought to be. He hissed and sliced its head off, tearing through the monster’s neck like paper. They were fighting like they were uninfect—

“Wild!” Sky shouted. Wild whipped around, only to see a one-armed silver moblin looming over him with a club, and Time, behind it, slicing its remaining arm off. Time shoved his sword through its stomach and flung it to the ground.

“Watch yourself,” Time said.

“Right,” Wild panted.

“You guys take the moblins,” Sky called. “I can handle these!”

“Got it!” said Wild. There were three silver moblins total, with the armless one now thrashing on the ground as it tried to stand. Time planted a foot on its chest as it thrashed, his face flat and merciless. 

Wild looked away. 

The other moblins lumbered towards Sky, seeing him surrounded by so many bokoblins, though he’d adapted and was dodging and weaving like a dancer. Wild pursued the weaker of the two, the one with a limp, and whipped the spiral boomerang at its bad leg, tearing it clean off. It roared as it collapsed, attracting the other moblin’s attention. “I’ve got it,” Time said from behind, moving to face the stronger moblin himself.

Wild nodded. The one-legged moblin pushed itself up on all fours, snarling, its stump oozing light black blood. Suddenly it threw itself forwards, tackling him, throwing them both to the ground and punching the wind out of Wild’s chest. There was another distinct _thunk_ as the moblin grabbed his arm and twisted. “Guys!” Sky screamed while Wild tried hard not to. The pain shot through his arm like lightning. He kneed the moblin hard in the stomach, but it didn’t let go. He thrashed and twisted and kicked but it only made the pain worse, _oh, Hylia, it’s going to break_ , and it yanked harder, pain tearing through his shoulder—

The Master Sword sliced its head off. The body collapsed on top of him. Sky didn’t linger. “Time!” he yelled.

The clash of a club on metal met Wild’s ears. “I’m _fine,_ ” Time said thickly. He did not sound fine.

“Get away from them!” Sky shouted. The moblin groaned. Wild braced himself with the arm his moblin hadn’t nearly broken and gritted his teeth, forcing himself into a sit. The moblin’s body was losing warmth. Wild had never felt something die like this. Its bipedal body was too much like a person. He was going to puke.

No! No he wasn’t. He’d been through worse. The pain was just making everything fuzzy. As his head spun, Sky and Time’s voices became blurred. He was somewhere else, he was… he was… the air was thick and hot and full of Malice, and there was a soldier on top of Link, a Hylian soldier, and a moblin had got him and he was bleeding to death all over Link and the body was going so cold… he was talking but Link couldn’t hear it. Zelda was calling out for him but the words were indistinct, white noise.

“Wild! Wild, are you okay?”

“What?” said Wild.

No body was on top of him anymore. In fact, there was no body at all. Dissolved?

The air wasn’t thick and full of malice, the air was crisp and clear and brisk. Sky was crouching in front of him, doe-eyes wide.

“Did you get a memory?” Sky asked.

“...Yes,” Wild said. He seemed much better off than he was before he’d gone into the memory. His arm didn’t hurt so much anymore, and Sky wasn’t doubled over, and whatever happened to Time—judging by Sky’s shouting, it couldn’t have been good—was healed. “What happened? I was only gone for a few seconds.”

“You were out for a couple minutes,” Time said. “Some more monsters came up from the canyon. We won.” Time’s no-nonsense attitude was a blessing and a curse. “I didn’t want to leave your shoulder dislocated, so I put it back in place. I’m glad you didn’t feel it.” Right, Wild didn’t feel anything except that body. “I asked one of the fairies for help on all three of us, so nothing’s too bad. Do you need a minute?”

He needed an eternity. He felt sick.

“No,” he said. “We need to find Wind.”

  
  


The worst part of their journey through Tabantha began with the wind rocking the excavation platforms. Wild’s stomach squeezed and squirmed. He took a deep breath in as he pulled back on the bow, trying to focus. They didn’t wash the blood off him. His sleeves stuck to his arms.

He couldn’t focus. His hands wouldn’t stop shaking from that memory. But he needed to shoot or else the moblin would get to Time and Sky, and that was the last thing any of them needed. With each lumbering step, the silver moblin made the wood platform tremble.

Wild breathed in. Fired. He was aiming for the brain, but it skimmed the side of its head. Breathed in. Fired. There it was.

Its body slumped onto the platform. Wild stared.

There were so many monsters, and they weren’t even halfway down. He could barely make out the bottom of the canyon. Sky was pressed close to the wall of rock, eyes narrowed as the three of them crept forward. As the best archer, Wild was in front so he wouldn’t hit anyone. He didn’t feel much like the best archer among them now, though. He felt… he didn’t know.

They crept downwards at a snails’ pace. Monsters rose up to meet them at every turn, charging and shaking the platform with their heavy footfalls. Wild’s stomach lurched with each footstep, each shot fired. The air was warmer down here. Too warm. Like the Shrine of Resurrection had been.

The rickety platforms took them over the Forgotten Temple itself, taunting them with how far down it still was. Wild swallowed and told himself to man up. This was for Wind.

As more and more monsters fell, the platforms’ trembling got stronger and stronger. Wild breathed in. He missed Rito Village already. The air here was so… thick. Hylia, could he focus for one minute? He shot at the black bokoblin approaching them and missed.

The shaking got stronger. It was behind him. Rhythmic.

With a few moments to spare before the next monster arrived, he turned.

The worst part of Tabantha began in seconds that felt like an eternity. Behind Time, a clawed golden hand had grabbed onto the edge of the platform. Another joined it in seconds. Then, the beast heaved itself upwards, a sneering, drooling golden moblin’s head appearing over the edge. “Time,” he said again, useless, floundering, his mouth not working as it should. Why couldn’t he speak? “Behind—“

The wood groaned threateningly under the moblin’s weight as it threw itself, all at once, onto the platform. Tremors rocked the platform. Sky and Time stumbled, Wild did not.

The squabble and shriek of monster voices below rose suddenly, a cacophony, and a club soared upwards. The moblin caught it, snarling. Sometimes Wild forgot that the monsters in his world danced and sang and cooked—that they were smart. But they’d never done something as coordinated as _this_.

Sky shot past Wild in the other direction, grabbing his arm to keep him stable. He yelled something about monsters as he sliced through the black bokoblins that’d been coming at them on their other side. Time reached for his shield, but the platform was about to tear and it was putting him off balance. He wouldn’t block the hit coming in time. Even at his most graceful, he was nowhere near as fast as someone like Sky. 

Or Wild.

The platform was just barely thick enough for him to dart past Time and raise his shield.

The seconds felt like hours. Numbly, he realized too late that he blocked too high. The club caught him around the waist. He was swatted aside like a fly. It knocked the wind out of his chest, stole the feeling from his fingers. He couldn’t even grab his paraglider.

Sky screamed after him. He didn’t hear Time’s voice.

Wild was… somewhere dark. Was he? He was. He was bleeding. There was a lot of blood, smeared all over his hands and oozing slow down his face. He stared up but could not recognize anything about where he was. 

Some of it seemed familiar, right on the tip of his tongue, and he knew he’d been here before. He wasn’t sure where everyone else was. He was alone. Maybe. Someone was breathing. If it was him, it was awfully sluggish and wet and thick.

Something shifted in the rubble nearby, so slowly and painfully and with more effort than he thought it could ever take, Wild turned and lifted his head to look. Something was clamoring over the rubble, a figure, distant, dimmed by the dust and smog in the air, hard to make out. About his size and build. It raised a hand and waved to him. He let his head sink onto the ground in relief. It must be Sky, then, closer to Wild’s size than Time or Wind, though in his delirium something about it didn’t seem quite right.

“There…you are,” he coughed, squinting as the blood from his forehead oozed into his eye. 

A silence.

“There you are,” his own voice said back. 

Something in Wild went very cold. 

He braced his forearms against the hard stone and pushed himself up. His body quaked with tremors, screaming in protest, and his eye covered in blood twitched as it struggled in vain to stay open. He tried desperately to focus on the form in front of him, and it was drawing closer, much closer, but nothing about it became any clearer. He couldn’t make out its face or any sign of hair or clothes or weapons. 

His forearms gave out.

It didn’t make any sound as it walked. In seconds, it was looming over him. It was hazy, malicious nothingness, barely even holding itself together in the shape of a person. It leaned over him, staring down with no eyes. Smoothly, it planted a foot on his chest.

Suddenly he knew what it was.

“What…” Wild said. It wasn’t what he wanted to say. He knew what. 

It opened its mouth. It had a mouth? It had teeth. The rest of its face was more of that hazy, incomprehensible nothing but the teeth were so real. Like the golden bokoblins it drooled thick, purple-black spittle. “What…” it mimicked. Like a mockingbird, Wild thought a little hysterically. A Hylian mockingbird. No, that _thing_ wasn’t Hylian. 

That thing was—

It was Malicious. It was so familiar.

“Come find me,” the mockingbird said suddenly. It still spoke in his voice, but the words… they all didn’t make sense together, each with a different tone and diction, like they were pulled from entirely different sentences and slotted carelessly into this one. “Sh…”

Wild opened his mouth. His tongue was heavy and dry. It didn’t want to move. “...Shadow,” he choked out. His other eye kept twitching rapidly against the slow flow of blood. 

“Mmm,” hummed the mockingbird, inscrutable. It pressed its foot down harder into his chest. Wild waited to feel pain, to hear the cracking of the ribs and feel it press down on his heart, but none of that came. Perhaps he was just so overwhelmed from the pain and blood loss that he couldn’t even feel it anymore. The thought was almost funny. It’s almost like the mockingbird wasn’t there at all. 

The blood pouring over his eye was crawling down his neck now, as thick and wet as his own labored breathing. Was he dreaming? He had to be. He had seen creatures of malice before and they were _creatures_ , they weren’t whatever this thing, the mockingbird, was. Something in the shape of a creature, nothingness in human form. Nothing could exist like this thing existed. It wasn’t right.

Wasn’t it? 

The mockingbird leaned in even closer and suddenly Wild could recognize it. Just little pieces. He saw the slope of his own jaw as it tilted its head, the shape of his own hands as it brought one up to where its face should’ve been. There was nothing but buzzing blackness there still, but if Wild squinted hard enough maybe he could see the bridge of his own nose above its strange mouth.

No, he was making something out of nothing. No, this wasn’t real.

“Dream,” he muttered.

“Dream?” said the mockingbird. It was a question, even though it was said much too flatly to be one. “Really?”

It had to be a dream, Wild thought, finding he couldn’t say it out loud. It had to be. The world was spinning and this creature was standing so perfectly still. Its foot dug hard into his chest but there was no pain, hardly even any weight. _Pinch me_ , he almost wanted to joke like Wind and Wars could, but he couldn’t bear the idea of it getting any closer.

This wasn’t how any of this worked. Malice made monsters and blights and Calamities, fully-formed and so alive and living still in his nightmares. It didn’t make things like this. Hylian, hazy, incomplete. So wasn’t it a dream?

“Come find me,” the mockingbird said in lieu of an answer. 

Wild stared at its empty face, at its total nothingness. He didn’t know how he saw features in it, but he did. The black blood on the bokoblin… the mockingbird was just like that. It consumed light. 

“Right here,” Wild says vaguely.

The mockingbird laughed like Wild laughed at the Stone Mask, shrieking and high and terribly grating. Wild wondered if this is how he sounded all the time. Wild wondered if this is real. “No,” said the mockingbird. “Not right here. Come find me.”

This was a dream. Wild was bleeding out. This was a dream. None of this made any sense. He shoved himself backwards, scrambling out under the foot the mockingbird has on his chest, and it did not flinch. It just stood.

Moving back was a Herculean task. Now the pain was everywhere, in his arms and his head and his back and his stomach. But not on his chest. Not where the mockingbird had dug its foot in so far.

Why wasn’t it trying to kill him? If this was a nightmare, that’s what it would do. And if this were real, that’s what it would do, too. The Shadow had been trying to kill them since the very beginning of all of this.

“Why,” he said, just to see what his imagination can come up with. The blood was in his mouth. The blood was on his tunic. The blood was everywhere. He breathes in, thick, wet, heavy. “Divine Beasts... Black blood... Golden… Why?”

“There’s no _why_ ,” answered the mockingbird. “There’s no _why_ for you either. How we are.”

“Shut up,” Wild snapped. Tried to snap. That was all nonsense. His tongue was heavy and thick and covered in blood.

He fumbled at his side for the Slate and grinned when he found it. The mockingbird showed its teeth, too. 

He pulled out his bow and knocked one of the gifts, one of those too terribly bright light arrows, because if this was a dream then hopefully he’d kill it and he would wake up, and if this somehow isn’t a dream he will kill it and the Malice infecting everything will go with it. It must be a dream, though, because his movements were slow and choreographed and the mockingbird didn’t even try to stop him. It hummed as if disappointed.

Wild fired. It struck true.

“Come find me,” his own voice called to him in the flash of light that followed. “Sh—“

Then Wild blinked. The light of the explosion was imprinted on his eyelids.

He wasn’t lying where he was when he passed out. He thought. Maybe. It was so dark and full of smog and dust then that he couldn’t really tell. Suddenly, the gray blobs in front of his eyes registered that as the biggest Goddess Statue in all of Hyrule. Ancient as She was, the Goddess Statue in the Forgotten Temple was remarkably well-preserved. 

This was where he got his clothes from the Monks, though it was a distant memory, hard to hold onto. His Hero’s clothes. The air wasn’t so thick and hot back then, but now it felt difficult even to breathe.

His entire body hurt. It was as if he was bruised everywhere, especially along his back, sides, and stomach. As he pushed himself up it felt, well, exactly like one would imagine being hit in the gut by a moblin and falling a few hundred stories would feel. ...Actually, maybe not _that_ bad, because that definitely would’ve killed him, and he wasn’t dead. His last fairy must’ve done it. It was the little things.

He touched his hip, grimacing at the pain that flared up his sides at the movement. “Where’s my Slate?” he asked. It came out somehow muffled.

“Oh, thank Hylia, _Wild_!”

In seconds Sky was at his side, supporting him as he struggled to sit. His kind face was stricken with worry, his hand gentle on Wild’s back. Wild wanted to scream. _Don’t touch me, I’m not a baby, I don’t need you to treat me like this_. But he just woke up and everything hurt so badly. Even the three words he’d said had exhausted him. Sky was spattered in black blood, cloaked in dust and soot, and his leg was wrapped in bandages. Glancing down at his own body, Wild found he wasn’t much better, but the blood covering him was mostly red. He tentatively lifted his tunic. Swaths of bandages were wrapped around his middle. When he glanced back up to Sky, the other hero’s eyes were wide and sympathetic.

“...Sailcloth,” Wild mumbled. The familiar white cloth wasn’t tucked around Sky’s shoulders.

Sky blinked. “Oh, my sailcloth?” He smiled a small smile. “In my pack. I didn’t want it to get dirty.”

Wild licked his lips. Dry. “My… Slate?” 

“I have it,” said Time.

Wild knew immediately that this was not like it had been with the lynel. Time’s tone was the kind of cold that burnt, not the exasperated familiarity he’d had back then. When he knelt next to Sky, holding the Slate, his expression was blank. Instinctively, Wild drew into himself, preparing for the lecture he’d come to expect after pulling something like this.

But nothing came. Time simply said, “Here,” not cruelly but certainly not kindly, and offered the Slate.

Wild took it gratefully. His hands shook. “Are you guys…” He paused, taking in Time’s similarly disheveled appearance. There was a bandage along his cheek still wet with blood. “...OK?” he finally settled on.

Time scoffed, muttering something about how of _course_ that’s what Wild would say next. Sky laughed. “We managed,” Sky said, but even he didn’t sound optimistic.

Wild stared for a long moment, reality finally settling in. They were in the Forgotten Temple. They’d made it to their destination. So—

“Where’s Wind?”

Sky’s hesitant smile flickered and died. Time looked to the statue of Hylia, his face not changing in the slightest. 

“...Where is he?”

“He wasn’t here,” Time said sharply. “We couldn’t find anything down here. Nothing except you.”

“Nothing,” he repeated blankly. Well, that explained how he was still alive. No monsters were there to tear into him when he landed.

Sky shook his head weakly. “Not even any monsters, once we got off the excavation platforms. Just you.”

“You were almost dead. When you fell, we thought—” Time cut himself off quickly. He swallowed and turned his head, as though he regretted saying it as soon as it left his lips.

Sky sent Time a nervous glance. “We have no healing potions left,” he said quietly. “Or fairies. We used them all up fighting our way down here. And you’re even worse off than we are. We need to stay here and try to recover, at least until the morning. Maybe longer.”

“Hylia,” Wild cursed.

The Goddess Statue towering over them all did not reply. 

  
  


Wild didn’t ever like to say that things couldn’t possibly get worse, because he was a seasoned adventurer, and knew very well that things could always get worse. But it _really_ felt like things couldn’t possibly get worse from here.

But then, in a moment of paranoia, giving into something that had been whispering at the back of his mind ever since he’d woken up, he checked his bow and arrow arsenal. Five bows in reserve. A couple hundred regular arrows, about fifty of each elemental kind, two ancient arrows, two light arrows.

Two light arrows.

Two…

Wild felt the blood drain from his face.

Having already lost so much blood earlier, the fear made him dizzy, and his fingers loosened on the Slate. It slid out of his grasp with a clatter, shattering the silence like glass. Sky, who had taken to lounging under the statue of Goddess Hylia where the air wasn’t so thick and hateful, had fallen asleep and didn’t stir. But even though Time’s quiet anger had given the atmosphere an uncomfortable charge, he was crouching by Wild’s side in seconds.

“Wild,” he said, hurried, “your wounds?”

“No,” Wild said. “No, I thought it was a dream. But I saw the Shadow. Before you two found me I _saw_ it.”

“You saw the Shadow?” 

Wild expected skepticism, but Time didn’t sound unsure at all. Surprised, maybe, but not dubious.

“It was—I shot at it, in the dream, with a light arrow,” he said, the words tripping over each other in a clunky, stumbling dance. “And now in my Slate one of the light arrows is _gone_. I…”

Time’s hand landed on his upper back. It wasn’t gentle like Sky, it was firm and grounding. “ _Breathe_ ,” he ordered. Wild did. His chest rose and fell with each deep breath. When Wild’s heartbeat finally slowed, Time asked, “And you were certain it was the Shadow?”

“Yes,” he said. “It looked—Time it looked like _me_.”

The confidence on his face didn’t vanish entirely but turned strange, his eye going wide. “It looked like you?”

“Yes,” he said again, feeling stupid. “It was… it was so... It was malicious. But it was in my shape. I recognized it.”

Time stared at him, searching for something in his face. Wild wasn’t sure if he found it when he sighed and said, “Of course.”

“Of course what?” he demanded. Did he recognize that… thing? Had he dreamt of it? Not told them?

“Dark Link,” Time said, like that explained anything. At Wild’s baffled look, he asked, “You haven’t fought him? I had assumed all of us had. I know the Traveler has. He mentioned fighting a living shadow of himself—I fought one of them, too, and the Captain has done the same. But I didn’t think…”

“No,” Wild said. “Never.”

There was something he didn’t like attributing a name like _Dark Link_ to that buzzing, barely human Malicious _thing_ . It humanized it, the opposite of calling Ganon “the Calamity.” And that thing was not Hylian, not even human—that thing stared deep into him with its shadow eyes and grinned with its mouth full of too-real teeth. It was _wrong_.

“I could easily believe that Dark Link is what's behind this,” Time continued, unaware of Wild’s shaken thoughts. “That thing wanted nothing except to kill me. Warriors and Hyrule seem the same way.”

“But it didn’t,” Wild murmured.

Time’s eye swiveled back to look at him.

“It had me alone,” Wild said. “I was bleeding, nearly dead. It put its foot on my chest but I barely felt it. It didn’t even hurt. It could’ve killed me, if it wanted, but it barely touched me.”

Time’s hand twitched on Wild’s back. “Did it say anything to you?” he asked slowly.

“It talked with my voice,” Wild said. That wasn’t what Time was asking, but he needed someone to hear it. “It asked me to… come find it.”

Time pinched the bridge of his nose between two fingers and massaged. Something about it was bizarrely reassuring. “OK,” he said, frustrated and stern in one. “OK. We’ll have one of us on watch at all times, then, even if it didn’t try to kill you. We don’t know what it has planned, but clearly it wants another interaction. We’ll have to accept that there isn’t much we can do about it right now. We need to devote our time to recovery. You two need it.”

“You need it, too,” Wild said.

Time adjusted his gauntlets, nodding like he wasn’t quite listening to him. Wild frowned.

Satisfied that the conversation was over, Time moved back to where his pack lay and sat down. He poorly hid a wince. At Wild’s concerned glance, he laughed it off with a casual “I’m just getting old. You’ll understand when you turn two hundred.”

“I’m telling Sky that you confessed to being a hundred.”

“You can say whatever you want, because none of them will ever believe it,” Time said, expression relatively neutral but tone very smug. “Just like with that piggyback ride.”

“You make blackmail _impossible,_ ” Wild hissed. “It’s no fun.” Time grinned, only a small one, in return. When the silence lingered for a little too long, Wild asked, “Do you think Sky has fought it? Er, Dark Link?” The mockingbird, his mind corrected.

Time thought about this. “I truly don’t know,” he said frankly. “I’d always assumed Dark Link was a creation of Ganon, who Sky has never fought, but in truth, there’s no proof to that. It could simply be a creature, all its own.”

That sounded more right to Wild. The Calamity had birthed some truly wretched things, like the Blights, but something about the mockingbird defied creation.

“It’s weird. Giving the Shadow a face. My face.”

Time considered him for a moment. “I know what you mean,” he said. 

  
  


As the minutes passed, Time stripped off the bandage on his cheek, examining his wound in the reflection of his bright Mirror Shield, polished to a shine. He must have done it before Wild woke… sometimes Wild really wondered about his priorities. The cut was clean, luckily not looking infected, but clearly inflicted by the tip of a blade. Time had been dangerously close to a much worse injury. Guilt crawled up Wild’s throat and spilled out as, “Why didn’t you yell at me? For taking that hit for you?”

He sounded like a child.

Time set his shield on his lap. “There was no reason to,” he said.

Wild stared. 

Time sighed. “Wild, you’ve been lectured about self-sacrificial behavior a hundred times by now. Even by _Wind_.” Wild winced. “I know that none of that is going to make you stop.”

“Well—“

“I know,” Time continued, like he hadn’t even spoken, “because I wouldn’t stop either, in your place.”

“I knew that,” Wild huffed with fierceness that surprised himself. “Wind and Twilight would both do the same thing if they were here. If I’m an idiot, then we all are.”

Time nodded sagely. “We share the same spirit, after all.”

A laugh escaped him. It hurt his ribs, so he stopped as soon as he started, but it was there. At the choked-off gasp, Time’s face turned serious.

“I'm not encouraging this kind of behavior from you,” Time reminded him firmly. “Know this—the _last_ thing our group needs is one of us getting ourselves killed, especially if it means another of us will blame themselves for it. That would destroy us." His voice, sharp as a knife, softened as he added, "But I understand why you do it. I understand completely.” 

Sometimes Wild forgot that he was in a group now where his death had meaning, where he would be missed. His relationship with death had always been hazy, as what essentially was a reanimated corpse, and got even more flaky once Mipha came along. Between her and the Shrine and the fairies, mortality wasn’t a concern. His life literally did not matter. But the gravity with which Time spoke, the faint hint of anger that still lingered on his face, and the way Wild’s body ached and bruised all felt suddenly and strangely real in a way it’d never been. 

“...And, for the record, thank you,” Time added, though it was a little reluctant. “For saving my life.”

  
  


Sky had woken up once after he’d started dozing at Hylia’s base, fished his sailcloth out of his bag, and draped over himself like a blanket. He seemed even more relaxed here than he was at Rito Village, his face boyish with sleep.

Wild envied him. Usually when he got injured it involved a blow to the head, which made passing in and out of consciousness pretty easy. But for some reason, even though his head was pounding, he couldn’t fall asleep.

His body hurt. His head hurt. The floor hurt. This is what he got for running out of elixir ingredients and not stocking up… he was probably too weak to even look for any right now… 

“Time?” he whispered.

“Mm?”

This was stupid. He’d done a lot of stupid things but asking this was probably going to be the stupidest. But he saw Time holding his ocarina, and it seemed like the only thing that would conjure up comfort at the moment.

“...Could you play that song? The one for horses?”

Time turned back to look at him. The simmering anger gave way to surprise. “The one for horses?”

“The one that’s…” Wild began, then hummed the first few notes, notes full of warmth and safety and feeling like a roof over his head.

“Epona’s Song?”

“That’s what it’s called? Kass never said.”

The confusion on Time’s face only intensified. “Kass? He knows it?”

“Yeah, he plays it all the time,” Wild murmured. “Didn’t he play it for you this morning? I thought… because you were…”

Just like that, Time’s expression shuttered. “No,” he said. “No, that… wasn’t the song he played.” He turned his ocarina over in his hands, expression obscured as he stared down at the beautiful blue instrument. “...I’ll play Epona’s Song,” he finally said. “If that’s what you want to hear.”

He raised the ocarina to his lips and played. Sweet and soft and kind, the tune, Wild thought as he drifted off, felt like home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi everyone !! sorry for pushing a few days past the two-week update time, shits been CRAZY recently as im sure u all know. on the bright side this chapter is fucking huge so um. i hope you like it? :D the forgotten temple scene was pretty pivotal to my idea of the story it was just like...ok how do i GET there...  
> this chapter has a LOT of plot and action lol most others should be a liiiiittle more balanced in favor of talkin but i was glad to introduce the stuff i introduced here... especially mockingbird/dark link! rest assured it won't be stealing TOO much bonding time, if anything its here to facilitate it lol   
> i kind of hated this chapter while i was writing it but reading it back i actually like it a lot... writing block hit me pretty hard in the process of writing this one unfortunately... ill try to keep to updates every 2 weeks from now on but with how insane 2021 has been already its hard to guarantee anything LMFAO  
> thank u all so so so so much for ur support so far i cannot even describe how happy it makes me :D  
> find me on tumblr @ archangelgf


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